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KEY BOOK VIII 



HISTORY. 



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SIGNIFICANT ASPECTS of ANCIENT 
AND MEDIAEVAL CIVILIZATION 



By RUTH B. FRANKLIN, M. A., 
Of the Rogers High School, Newport. 



L. J. FREEMAN, PUBLISHER, 
CENTRAL FA LLS, R. 1 



USRARY of CONGRESS 


Two Copies Received 

APR 24 mj 


y iopyriffht Entry 
CL^SS A >^c„ NO: 
C©PY B. '1 



Ff 



Copyright 1906, 
BY L. J. FREEMAN. 



PRESS OF 

E. L. Freeman Company, 

CENTRAL FALLS, R. I. 



®abk 0f (UntxtmU. 



I. Early Oriental Civilization. 

II. "The glory that was Greece" 

III. "And the grandeur that was Rome." 

IV. Feudalism. 

V. The Church as a Factor in Mediaeval Civilization. 

VI. The Crusades. 

VII. The Development of National States — France and 
England. 

VIII. The Trade Guilds and the Growth of Town Life. 



CHAPTER I. 

Early Oriental Civilization. 

One who attempts to trace the progress of civilization 
through the centuries may well take for his guiding prin- 
ciple Emerson's statement/ 'History is the lengthened shad- 
ow of a man," or the less familiar expression of the same 
thought by Pascal, "The whole series of human genera- 
tions should be regarded as one man, ever living and ever 
learning," for the unity in historical development and the 
value of the past in explaining the present find their closest 
analogies in the life of the individual. It is only by a 
recognition of these two fundamental truths that we can 
follow the expansion of our civilized life from its relatively 
simple beginnings to its present complexity. 

The earliest centres of civilization were in the valleys of 
the Nile and the Euphrates and the district intermediate be- 
tween the African and the Asiatic states, and these oriental 
people, Egyptians, Babylonians, and Phoenicians, by their 
contributions to European life and thought, must be counted 
among the most important factors in shaping the civiliza- 
tion of the present. It has been well said that a goodly 
portion of that civilized past of which we are the heirs 



8 EARLY ORIENTAL CIVILIZATION. 

was the creation of Ancient Egypt. The country was, 
as Herodotus expressed it, ''the gift of the Nile," and 
its material prosperity depended absolutely on the river. 
The fertility of the soil due to the annual overflow of the 
river, the cheap food supply, the warm, dry climate, the 
advantageous commercial situation at the meeting of 
three continents, the easy means of internal communica- 
tion and trade afforded by the Nile, and the protecting 
boundaries of mountains, desert, and sea were all con- 
ditions favorable to early development. The history 
of the country is the history of successive dynasties of rulers 
and a shifting centre of power. According to the most 
generally received chronology, the history from the first 
to the last of the Pharaohs ranges over four thousand 
years. 

The earliest period, the Ancient Empire, is that of the 
kings of Memphis. Menes, the founder of the so-called 
First Dynasty, is represented by tradition as the builder 
of the great city which was the seat of royal power for 
nearly two thousand years. At Memphis reigned the 
kings of the Fourth Dynasty, the builders of the pyramids. 
But the later part of the long supremacy of Memphis was 
a time of anarchy and decay and the seat of power was 
transferred to Thebes. The civilization of the Middle 
Empire under the Theban Pharaohs, characterized by 
Rawlinson as ''utilitarian, beneficent, judicious," was 
marked by great internal improvements, but it was, in 



EARLY ORIENTAL CIVILIZATION. 9 

turn, followed by a period of decay. In the words of an 
Egyptian chronicler, — "God was averse to the land and 
there came men of ignoble birth out of the eastern parts 
who had boldness enough to make an expedition into the 
country and subdued it with ease." For about four 
hundred years these Hyksos or Shepherd Kings ruled the 
land. Violent and barbarous at first, they gradually were 
transformed by the civilization with which they came in 
contact and in time adopted the manners and culture of 
the Egyptians. The use of the horse as a beast of burden 
was introduced by them, and the many traders who fol- 
lowed them did much to increase the intercourse between 
Egypt and other nations. 

When the native power was re-established a period 
of conquest and great prosperity followed, and the 
country reached its highest point of power under the 
''later Theban" or New Empire. Thotmes III, of 
the Eighteenth Dynasty, carried the frontiers to their 
greatest limits. "The chiefs of all the countries were 
clasped in his fist." His authority extended beyond the 
Euphrates and represented, in a certain sense, a political 
union of the East. The culture of Egypt was spread 
abroad, while in Egypt itself the booty, the many captives, 
and the tribute from conquered states contributed to the 
advance in industry and art. In building activity no less 
than in conquest was the period the most eventful in 
Egyptian history. During the later years of the New 



lO EARLY ORIENTAL CIVILIZATION. 

Empire the constant warfare with the Hittites for su- 
premacy in Syria weakened the power of the Theban 
kings and the glory of the kingdom decHned. The centre 
of power returned to the Delta and the new city of Sais 
became the capital. Foreign conquests were lost, and the 
country, driven back to its ancient limits, became subject 
first to Ethiopia and then to Assyria. A temporary 
revival of prosperity was brought about by Psametichus, 
in the middle of the seventh century B. C, through the 
development of foreign commerce and the employment 
of foreign mercenaries. Although of short duration and 
of little importance in itself, this last period of Egyptian 
independence is probably the period of the most important 
Egyptian influence upon Europe. After that time the 
country became the prey of one foreign conqueror after 
another, and at last was annexed by the Romans to their 
all-powerful Empire. 

Throughout the entire history, the government was 
the rule of the Pharaoh, the absolute master of the people 
and owner of the soil. His divine authority was limited 
in practice by the land-owning privileged classes, the 
priests and the nobles. Below this aristocracy of birth 
and the privileged orders of priests and soldiers and the 
mass of offlcials of all grades was the middle class of the 
towns, merchants and skilled artisans, and at the bottom 
the great agricultural class "heavily burdened with the 
weight of all these others." 



EARLY ORIENTAL CIVILIZATION. II 

Although originally an agricultural people, the Egyptians 
early advanced in industrial and mechanical arts. Paper 
from the papyrus, fine linen, products of glass blowing, 
metal working, and gem cutting were carried by traders to 
the markets of the known world. In the cutting and 
shaping of enormous blocks of stone and in the art of 
building, wonderful results were achieved. Architecture 
was the chief Egyptian art, especially the architecture of 
the temple and the tomb. The pyramids of Gizeh and 
the hall of columns in the temple at Karnak show the 
strength, durability, power, and grandeur which their 
builders secured. The thoroughly conservative character 
of Egyptian art is best seen in the sculpture. Much of 
the early work was lifelike, and although the colossal 
statues and sphinxes seem unnatural, there are many 
smaller statues which are marvels of skill and workman- 
ship. The influence of religion fettered the progress of 
art, and since the artist was forbidden to change the sacred 
forms of the gods, sculpture became imitative, unpro- 
gressive, and rigid. 

The literature as well as the art of the Egyptians has 
become a part of the world's heritage. Through the in- 
terpretation of the Rosetta stone and the deciphering of 
the hieroglyphics, "that delightful assemblage of birds, 
snakes, men, tools, stars, and beasts," the varied forms 
of literary activity, poetry, scientific treatises, religious 
works, fairy tales have been made known to us. In 



12 EARLY ORIENTAL CIVILIZATION. 

astronomy, geometry, arithmetic, and medicine great 
progress was made. Science was forced upon their at- 
tention by the necessity of marking the boundaries of the 
land after an inundation of the river and by watching the 
movements of the heavenly bodies in order to predict the 
exact time of the annual overflow of the Nile. These 
observations led them to discover the length of the year, 
which they fixed at three hundred and sixty-five days, 
adding one day every fourth year and thus inventing the 
leap year arrangement. This calendar, introduced into 
Rome by Julius Caesar, with the slight correction of Pope 
Gregory in the sixteenth century, is the system employed 
by almost all the civilized world to-day. Our debt to 
ancient Egypt is indeed great, for to those early dwellers 
in the valley of the Nile we owe the beginnings of indus- 
trial skill, of art, and of science, in a word ''the lighting 
of the torch of civilization." 

As in the case of Egypt, the physical features of the coun- 
try exercised a great influence upon the history of the 
Tigris-Euphrates valley. The lower portion, Chaldaea, 
consisted of flat, fertile lowlands, while the northern or 
upper part of the valley, Assyria, was a broad tableland 
broken by mountain ridges. Three Empires rose in turn 
in this double valley. The oldest in the south centred at 
Babylon, a city which very early attained a pre-eminence 
over the other city-states of Chaldaea and united them 
under its rule. The history of the Old Babylonian Empire 



EARLY ORIENTAL CIVILIZATION. 



13 



is characterized by many changes and revolutions and the 
varying fortunes of conquerors and conquered. 

For a long time Assyria was a dependent province of 
Babylon, but in the twelfth century B. C. the northern 
country under Tiglath-Pileser I, the first of the great 
Assyrian conquerors, became the dominant kingdom of 
the valley. What he had built up soon fell to pieces and 
for some centuries the power of Assyria decHned, but it 
was restored again in the eighth century by Tiglath-Pileser 
II, who may be counted as the founder of the real Assy- 
rian Empire. The policy of the later kings of organiz- 
ing the conquered countries as provinces with Assyrian 
governors or as tributary states under native rulers greatly 
advanced the Assyrian power. The practice of trans- 
planting conquered peoples, as was done when the Ten 
Tribes of Israel were carried into captivity, was another 
device of the rulers for making conspiracy and revolt 
impossible. For nearly six centuries the kings of Nineveh 
lorded it over the East, but Babylon, which had been in 
subjection to the northern state during all this time, at 
last succeeded in revolting. Nineveh was besieged and 
taken and a new Empire was established in the south. 

This New Babylonian Empire reached the height of its 
glory in the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, a period memora- 
ble for the rebuilding of Babylon and the Babylonian 
captivity of the Jews. The New Empire, however, lasted 
but a short time, for in 538 B. C. Babylon fell before the 



14 EARLY ORIENTAL CIVILIZATION. 

Persians and Empire passed from the Euphrates valley. 

The kings of Babylonia and Assyria, although exercising 
absolute power, did not claim for themselves divine origin. 
The king was the real centre of religious, industrial, and 
intellectual life. "In fact the king, his palaces and tem- 
ples, embody and include the civilization of Babylon and 
Nineveh." Between the official classes and the peasantry 
was the great middle class of artisans and merchants. 
Wealth counted for much, and the mercantile element was 
a prominent one. 

The Assyrians had no civilization of their own, but 
spread abroad through their conquests the culture which 
they had learned from their southern neighbors. The 
clay tablets found in great numbers in the palace libraries 
at Nineveh and other cities preserve for us in the cunei- 
form characters the business accounts, legal contracts, 
public documents, and religious hymns of the people, as 
w^ell as their books of astronomy, geometry, and other 
sciences. The Babylonians made practical use of their 
science. They gave the world a system of weights and 
measures, and the method of reckoning time by weeks, 
days, hours, and minutes. They invented the sun dial 
and the water clock and understood the lever and the 
pulley. In industrial arts they were as skilful as the Egyp- 
tians and had made much progress in weaving, dyeing, 
metal working, and gem cutting. In architecture they 
did not equal the durability of Egyptian work because 



EARLY ORIENTAL CIVILIZATION. 1 5 

they used brick as a building material. In the southern 
valley building stone was difficult to procure, and with 
sun-dried bricks the Babylonians erected high terraced 
foundations for temples and built great walls around 
their cities. In Assyria stone was easily obtained, but the 
Assyrians never advanced beyond the mode of building 
which they had learned from the Babylonians. Stone 
was used only for foundation purposes and for decoration. 
The sculptured slabs which ornamented the walls show 
the striking features of Assyrian sculpture, the stiff and 
conventional figures of men and the living grace and 
spirit of the animal forms. 

The influence of Babylonian civilization on the world 
has been greater than that of Egypt because it was more 
widely diffused through trade and warfare. Their most 
important contributions were the science of astronomy 
and the principles of commercial law. Their methods 
of carrying on trade and their processes of manufacture 
were, in a great measure, taken over by the Phoenicians. 

Hence it is to the Phoenicians as the carriers of oriental 
civilization that the modern world owes its greatest debt. 
Their function was not to create, but to disseminate. 
Dwelling in the narrow strip of country lying between the 
Mediterranean and the desert of Arabia, they were on the 
direct road from Egpyt to Mesopotamia.. In government 
they never united under one leadership, but remained a 
loose confederacy of cities grouped about Sidon or Tyre 



1 6 EARLY ORIENTAL CIVILIZATION. 

as leaders. Of these two centres, Sidon first came into 
prominence, and during the period of her greatness the 
Phoenicians became famous as the traders of the world. 
Fearless navigators and explorers, they ventured out to 
sea among the islands of the ^Egean, then along the coasts 
of the Mediterranean until they passed the pillars of 
Hercules into the open Atlantic. They amassed great 
wealth and secured a monopoly in the markets of the world. 
The glory of Tyre succeeded the greatness of Sidon. Of 
the wealth and trading power of this city we may form 
some idea from the words of the prophet Ezekiel: — "O 
thou that dwellest at the entry of the sea, which art the 
merchant of the peoples unto many isles. All the ships 
of the sea were in thee to exchange thy merchandise. 
With silver, iron, tin, and lead they traded for thy wares. 
Many isles were the mart of thy hands." Colonies were 
planted, along the shores and on the islands of the Medi- 
terranean, which rapidly became centres of civilization. 
From many of these important trading posts radiated long 
routes of land trade by which merchandise was brought 
from the interior to the sea-coast. Articles of Phoenician 
manufacture and commerce found their way all over the 
known world and the knowledge of navigation and manu- 
facture was acquired by the people with whom they traded. 
Their chief export, it has been said, was the alphabet. 
Originally they had used the Babylonian cuneiform charac- 
ters, but for the necessities of commerce they required a 



EARLY ORIENTAL CIVILIZATION. 1 7 

simpler mode of communication and invented for their 
use an alphabet of twenty-two letters, adapting these 
from the earher phonetic symbols. This alphabet has 
been the source of "all the other true alphabets in the 
world." Recent discoveries in Crete, however, show the 
existence of a crude Cretan alphabet before the intro- 
nicians of the Phoenician. The great claim of the Phoe- 
nicians to remembrance lies in the fact that they were the 
pioneers of maritime enterprise and colonization, and thus 
the means of distributing the arts and culture from the 
East among the early peoples of the Mediterranean area. 

Still another important factor in the development of civ- 
ilization was contributed by the Hebrews. They added 
nothing to material civilization and had no direct influence 
on intellectual and artistic progress, but to them the world 
owes the great gift of the idea of one God. From the 
first, a peculiar people with the belief in one sole God 
''beside whom there is no other," it was their mission to 
proclaim to mankind the idea of a supreme God who re- 
quires of all men "to do justice and practice righteousness." 
In the words of Renan, — "What Greece was to be as re- 
gards intellectual culture, and Rome as regards politics, 
these nomad Semites were as regards religion." The 
pure and lofty conception of God and his character, as re- 
vealed in the sacred books of the Old Testament, was the 
most vital force in the bequest of antiquity to later ages. 

The oriental civilization was characterized by progress, 



1 8 EARLY ORIENTAL CIVILIZATION. 

it is true, but the progress was hindered by many limita- 
tions, the conventionality in art and science, the super- 
stition in religon, and the despotism of government. 
Meanwhile a new civilization was rising in southern 
Europe. Despotism gave place to freedom, and uni- 
formity to diversity. The "task of building further the 
structure of human knowledge" passed into the hands of 
a younger and more progressive race. 



CHAPTER II. 

''The Glory that was Greece." 

Although the civilization of the Greeks drew much from 
the Orient, it remained essentially European in character. 
This distinction between an Asiatic and a European type 
may be accounted for in great measure by the physical 
characteristics of the countries. A more temperate climate 
and more varied products, small divisions of territory with 
natural boundaries, and above all the nearness to the sea 
and the inducement to trade tended to develop a civil- 
ization of great diversity and freedom. To-day scholars 
are inclined to deny that the European civilization was 
borrowed in its essential features or that the East "did 
more than afford the Greeks a few hints." However im- 
portant the physical conditions of a country may be in 
shaping the history of a people, the native genius of the 
people must always be considered as an equally strong 
formative influence in their development. "Neither the 
Greeks in any other land," says Freeman, "nor any other 
people in Greece would have been what the Greeks in 
Greece actually were." 

The recent excavations of Mr. Arthur Evans and 



20 THE GLORY THAT WAS GREECE. 

others in the island of Crete have pushed back still fur- 
ther into the unknown past the beginnings of Greek his- 
tory. At a period in the very early part of the second 
millenium B. C. a highly developed form of civilization 
was flourishing in Crete. The palace at Cnossus, with its 
labyrinth-like plan of rooms, covering acres of ground, 
bears witness to the great power on sea and land of its 
king, the Minos of early legend. On the mainland, also, 
the cities brought to light by the spade of Dr. Schliemann, 
Mycenae "rich in gold" and the "well walled" Tiryns, 
show the same progress of a great industrial civilization. 
The massive citadel walls of blocks of enormous weight, 
the complex plans of the royal dwellings, the decorations 
of the palaces, the beautifully wrought gold and silver 
ornaments and finely inlaid weapons, indicate that the 
rulers possessed immense wealth as well as absolute power 
and that the subject workmen had unusual mechanical 
and technical skill. During the Mycenaean age the Greeks 
began to extend the boundaries of their country by settling 
the islands and the east coast of the ^Egean. A great part 
of the western coast of Asia Minor was occupied by their 
colonies. The colonists had less wealth than the people 
of the mother country, but they enjoyed greater freedom. 
Among the lonians, on the central coast of Asia Minor, 
arose a civilization less brilliant and luxurious, but more 
vigorous and progressive, than that of the home land. 
This life in all its phases is reflected in the Homeric 



THE GLORY THAT WAS GREECE. 21 

poems. The government was in the hands of a king who 
was ''Zeus descended" and ruled by divine right, yet in 
reaHty was hampered by the Council of the Nobles. An 
assembly of the freemen was called to hear the plans 
and decisions of the king, but was without any authority. 
Social life was marked by great respect for the bond of 
kinship, hospitality to strangers, and simplicity in living. 
Industry was mainly agricultural and cattle were the 
principal source of wealth, for there was no separate class 
of traders. Instances of cruelty, violence, and treachery 
were frequent, and the age was by no means the "golden 
age of happiness "it is often represented. 

In the latter part of the eighth and the seventh century 
B. C. the colonizing movement assumed greater propor- 
tions. Travellers brought back marvellous stories of 
the glorious West and venturesome pilots turned their 
prows westward and reached the coasts of Sicily and 
Italy. A spirit of mercantile enterprise, the result of the 
growth in wealth of the cities of the home land, prompted 
the founding of trading stations for the further expansion 
of commerce. The political unrest in the cities and the 
rapidly increasing population also furnished motives for 
emigration. Primarily trading posts, the colonies were 
scattered along the shores of the JEgescn, Mediterranean, 
Black, and Adriatic seas. The borders of Hellas were 
widely extended and the territorial area greatly increased. 
As each colony became a separate independent state, free 



22 THE GLORY THAT WAS GREECE. 

from the political control of the mother city and bound to 
her only by ties of relationship and friendship, there was 
no union of the Greeks under a single government. But 
in the absence of political union the strong forces of race, 
language, and religion kept the Hellenes together and 
increased their feeling of the distinction between them- 
selves and their neighbors. By Greater Greece, Hellenic 
culture was spread throughout the Mediterranean world 
and the influence of Hellenic civilization immeasurably 
extended. 

While we must not lose sight of the fact that our Hellenic 
heritage is richest in art, philosophy, and literature, those 
things in which the love of beauty could best find expres- 
sion, still we must not fail to note that this love of pro- 
portion and moderation showed itself in the government 
which the Greeks developed. An age of political revo- 
lution followed the period of colonial expansion. Mon- 
archies gave way to Aristocracies, and these in many cases 
were overthrown by the Tyrants who, in their turn, paved 
the way for Democracies. Under whatever form it was 
administered, the city-state was the recognized political 
unit in Greece. Unlike our modern nation or territorial 
state, large in area, and made up of unrelated people 
living within definite bounds, this state was composed 
of those united by kinship and worship. By the union of 
the smaller political units, the clans into brotherhoods, and 
the brotherhoods into tribes, and then by the combination 



THE GLORY THAT WAS GREECE. 23 

of tribes, either through conquest or incorporation, into 
cities, these city-states had grown up. Among the many 
cities of Hellas, Sparta and Athens became the leading 
states. They both succeeded in consolidating the neigh- 
boring territory more completely than other cities had 
done, and both developed political institutions which be- 
came typical of the most common forms of Greek govern- 
ment, Oligarchy and Democracy. 

Sparta was strictly conservative and kept her institutions 
unchanged for centuries. Two hereditary kings, with 
many prerogatives but few powers, were the nominal head 
of the state, but the people exercised a controlling influence 
through their choice of the five Ephors, or overseers, who 
were the most powerful factor in the government. The 
right of choosing the Ephors and other officers belonged 
to the free Spartans who composed the popular assembly. 
The other inhabitants of Laconia were either in the con- 
dition of Perioeci, personally free but without political 
rights, or had been reduced to the condition of Helots, 
or state serfs. As the Spartans alone possessed all the 
privileges of the government, so they alone were bound 
by the regulations enforced for military training. From 
seven years on, the boys, youth and men lived under 
rigid military discipline. The individual and the family 
were disregarded, and the sole aim of the "Spartan train- 
ing" was to make good soldiers. Such a system was 
harsh and narrowing, but under it the Spartans developed 



24 THE GLORY THAT ¥/AS GREECE. 

the greatest war power in Greece and very early began to 
assert their ascendency over the surrounding states. By 
conquest and alliance Sparta brought into a league under 
her leadership almost all the states of the Peloponnesus. 
This Peloponnesian league had no federal constitution 
and was really a war confederacy. Its affairs were settled 
by a council of deputies from the states belonging, and the 
members furnished troops for war and shared among 
themselves the expenses of the league. The union was 
very slight, but it practically established Spartan suprema- 
cy in the Peloponnesus. 

In Athens a much more liberal policy prevailed than in 
Sparta. The monarchy of old times, which tradition 
assigned to Cerops and Theseus as founders, soon gave 
way to the rule of the nobles, and the aristocracy of the 
Eupatrids controlled the state for more than a century. 
The commons, however, becoming enriched by trade and 
commerce, gradually broke down the exclusive privileges 
of the nobles and forced themselves into recognition in 
the state. Those who could equip themselves with armor 
became members of the public assembly, with the right to 
vote and elect officers. The chief magistrates, the nine 
archons, were elected from men of the highest property 
qualification, and wealth rather than birth formed the 
basis of the government. Thus Timocracy succeeded 
Aristocracy. The famous lawgiver Solon introduced 
political changes that were strongly democratic in charac- 



THE GLORY THAT WAS GREECE. 25 

ter. He enrolled the Athenians, that is, those who were 
tribesmen, in the four property classes according to their 
annual income and admitted the fourth class, which had 
previously had no place in the government, to the general 
assembly, giving them the right of voting but not of ofhce 
holding. He further emphasized the idea of popular 
sovereignty by the foundation of a popular supreme court, 
which heard appeals from the decisions of the magistrates 
and tried the magistrates themselves at the close of their 
term of office. Before reaching the full development of 
democracy, however, Athens, like so many of the Greek 
states, passed under the rule of a tyrant. 

The Greek tyrant was not, as the name now implies, a 
cruel, despotic ruler, but one who had usurped the power. 
During the late seventh and early sixth century many of 
the Greek states were governed in this way. At Athens, 
Pisistratus took advantage of the factional strife in the 
city, and the general discontent and unrest that followed 
Solon's economic changes, to gain for himself the support 
of the poor peasants and seize the government. Although 
twice expelled by a combination of the opposing factions, 
he at last succeeded in keeping the power in his hands. 
His rule and that of his sons who followed him was a 
period of great prosperity in Athens. A wise foreign 
policy, patronage of art and literature, and agricultural 
improvements kept the people contented for nearly fifty 
years. But at last the family was expelled, and under 



26 THE GLORY THAT WAS GREECE. 

Cleisthenes a democracy was established. The funda- 
mental political change introduced by Cleisthenes was 
the substitution of local divisions, demes, for the older 
units of clans and tribes. The deme became the unit of 
local government and citizens and resident aliens alike 
were enrolled on the deme register. Citizenship dependent 
on residence succeeded that based on property. To pre- 
vent factional strife Cleisthenes introduced the institution 
of Ostracism, by which a man considered dangerous to 
the state might be banished, by vote of the assembly, for 
ten years. These reforms naturally aroused much opposi- 
tion from the aristocratic party in the city and an effort 
was also made by Sparta to overthrow the new govern- 
ment, but the democracy maintained itself and the enthusi- 
asm for popular government increased. 

It was during the tyranny of Pisistratus at Athens that 
the Ionian cities of Asia Minor, originally independent 
colonies, fell into the power of Croesus, king of Lydia. 
When he was overthrown by the Persians, they were 
cruelly oppressed. The liberty-loving lonians resisted 
this oppression and in 500 B. C. broke into open revolt. 
Sparta refused their appeal for aid, but Athens sent them 
ships. Therefore, after the revolt had been suppressed, 
the Persians determined to punish Athens for aiding the 
rebels. The real cause of the Persian invasion, however, 
was the desire of the Persian king to extend his conquests 
into Europe. The first expedition, sent out in 492 B. C, 



THE GLORY THAT WAS GREECE. 27 

was wrecked off Mount Athos, and two years later a second 
fleet, taking a more careful course through the southern 
iEgean, made its way against Athens. On the plain of 
Marathon in Attica, the Athenians with their allies, the 
Plataeans, faced many times their number of Persians, and 
by the good training of the soldiers and the generalship 
of Miltiades won a great victory. The memory of Mara- 
thon became the inspiration of the Athenians and urged 
them on to greater courage. 

It was ten years before another invasion was made by 
the Persians. A new king, Xerxes, was upon the Persian 
throne, and extensive preparations were made under his 
direction for the expedition. To guard against shipwreck 
at Mount Athos, a ship canal was dug through the isthmus.. 
A bridge of boats was constructed across the Hellespont 
to facilitate the crossing from Asia into Europe, and sup- 
plies were collected at stations along the way. Fortunately 
for Athens, she possessed an able statesman, Themistocles, 
who realized the approaching danger and urged the city 
to spend the surplus revenues in building a navy in order 
to meet the Persians successfully on the sea. The ap- 
proaching danger forced the Greeks to take common 
action and it was decided to make a stand at Thermopylae, 
where the mountains shut off northern from central 
Greece except for a very narrow pass. The brave death 
of Leonidas and his three hundred Spartans, when the 
Persians had by the treachery of a Greek gained the rear 



28 THE GLORY THAT WAS GREECE. 

of the pass, and the calm heroism of the Lacedaemonians 
in "obedience to their laws" made the disastrous defeat 
as glorious as a victory. As the Persian forces advanced 
through central Greece, the Athenians took refuge on 
their fleet, the "wooden walls" of the Delphic oracle. 
The Persian fleet, composed largely of Asiatic Greeks, 
had, by the secret advice of Themistocles, blocked up the 
narrow strait between the island of Salamis and the main- 
land, and there the Greeks won an overwhelming victory 
in a conflict that lasted from dawn to night. 

" Never yet so great a multitude 
Died in a single day as died in this," 

says the poet ^schylus in his account of the battle in 
his drama "The Persians." 

In the following year, 479 B. C., the final contest with 
the land forces left behind by Xerxes under his general, 
Mardonius, at Platsea, was another victory for the Greeks. 
The success of the Greeks saved the free and progressive 
civilization of the West from the despotism of the East. 
"It was a victory of intellect and spirit over matter." 
To the Greeks themselves it meant new energies, greater 
confidence, and ability to achieve. To quote the words of 
Dr. Waldstein, — "The effect of the Persian war upon the 
political spirit of the Greeks may be summed up in two 
words: width (of vision), and definiteness (of purpose)." 

The defeat of Persia counted more for the glory of 
Athens than of Sparta. Herodotus goes so far as to say 



THE GLORY THAT WAS GREECE. 29 

that the victory over Persia was due mainly to the skill, 
wisdom, and energy of Athens. It was to Athens, there- 
fore, that the Ionian cities looked for continued pro- 
tection against Persian aggression. Not only were the 
lonians kinsfolk of the Athenians, but Sparta was unwilling 
to assume the responsibility of defending such distant 
allies. This defensive alliance between Athens and the 
Asiatic Greeks was the real germ of the Confederacy of 
Delos. Organized in 478 B. C, under the direction of 
Aristeides, for the definite purpose of freeing the iEgean 
from Persian control, the league was predominantly 
Ionian and maritime. The island of Delos became the 
centre of the league and the meeting place of the annual 
congress of representatives. Each state was free and 
independent and paid a yearly contribution to the treasury, 
while the larger ones furnished also ships and men for the 
navy. The new Confederacy was a distinct advance on 
the Peloponnesian league in exacting annual tribute and 
supporting a permanent naval force. Under the lead 
of Cimon, son of Miltiades, the Persians were expelled 
from the northern Coasts of the ^Egean, and the Lycian 
and Carian coasts brought into the Confederacy, so that the 
number of cities was about two hundred and eighty. 
During this period of rapid growth many members be- 
came indifferent to their obligations and began to pay 
their tribute in money instead of furnishing ships and men. 
Before long the navy became solely Athenian, the allies 



30 THE GLORY THAT WAS GREECE. 

were not consulted about matters, and the treasury was 
removed from Delos to Athens. Some of the cities even 
attempted to revolt from the union, but they were con- 
quered and degraded to the condition of subjects. Thus 
what had been a voluntary confederation of independent 
cities was converted into what was practically an empire, 
with Athens as the 'tyrant city." 

Athens and Sparta were still in alliance, but the demo- 
cratic party opposed the policy of a dual hegemony in 
Greece and aimed to make the power of Athens supreme 
on land as well as sea. In 461 B. C. Athens formally 
renounced the alliance with Sparta and directed all her 
resources towards building up a land empire in central 
Greece. By conquests and alliances, Athens succeeded in 
extending her control from the Isthmus to Thermopylae. 
But the "Continental Federation" was short lived. All 
Boeotiafell away, for the oligarchs in the various cities won 
the upper hand and joined themselves to Sparta. Other 
allies deserted, and Athens was glad to conclude peace 
with her rival. By this agreement, the Thirty Years' 
Truce, Athens practically gave up her ambition to form 
a land empire and contented herself with her supremacy 
on the sea. 

During these years of peace, under the lead of Pericles, 
the Athenians were the leaders of the world in power and 
culture. Great material resources, high political develop- 
ment, and marked intellectual and artistic greatness 



THE GLORY THAT WAS GREECE. 3 1 

combined to make Athens the centre of the world in the 
fifth century. With a well-estabUshed imperialism abroad, 
at home Athens was rapidly developing more and more 
democratic institutions. The constitution of Cleisthenes 
had been gradually broadened by an extension of the 
powers of the assembly, the limitation of the Areopagus 
(the conservative element in the government), and the 
introduction of pay for pubUc service. The method of 
choosing the archons by lot had tended to diminish the 
power of the office and to make the board of ten generals 
the real administrators of the Empire. Financial and 
foreign affairs and the management of army and navy 
were in their hands. A statesman trusted by the popular 
party and a member of this board of generals held a posi- 
tion of supreme authority in the state. ''The govern- 
ment," says Thucydides, "was a democracy in name only, 
in reality it was ruled by its ablest citizen." Yet the 
leader's power depended wholly on the assembly, and the 
sovereign Demos controlled the legislative and judicial 
business of the city. That such a system worked well 
is to be explained only by the unusually high average of 
intelligence among the Athenians, and the political 
training they received. The citizens constantly heard 
"questions of foreign policy and domestic administration" 
discussed by great orators, and thus were educated in all 
matters of public concern and made fit to serve their city 
in any office. A man who took no interest in public 



32 THE GLORY THAT WAS GREECE. 

affairs was regarded as a useless character. The whole 
system was very like the old New England town meeting 
and differed from modern democracies in the lack of the 
principle of representation and in the restriction of the 
suffrage. The resident aliens and the allies were not 
admitted to citizenship. The life of the Periclean age 
expressed itself most fully in literature, architecture, and 
sculpture. Athens was truly "the school of Hellas." 
The dramas of Sophocles, the sculpture of Phidias, and 
the wealth of architectural beauty on the Acropolis were 
a constant inspiration to the Athenian citizen. And it is 
no wonder that Pericles, in the famous funeral oration 
reported by Thucydides, gave as his estimate of Athenian 
character, — "The individual Athenian in his own person 
seems to have the power of adapting himself to the most 
varied forms of action with the utmost versatility and 
grace." It is this wonderful intellectual and artistic 
development that makes the real significance of Athens 
in history and constitutes her imperishable glory. 

Before the thirty years' truce between Athens and 
Sparta had run half its length the conflict between the 
rivals for leadership was renewed. The imperial policy 
of Athens awakened the jealousy of the Peloponnesian 
league and still further increased the natural antagonism 
of race and character. Corinth, one of the members of 
the Peloponnesian league, became angry because Athens 
had interfered in a quarrel between herself and her colony 



THE GLORY THAT WAS GREECE. 33 

Corcyra, and appealed to Sparta for aid. A council of 
the league, called to deliberate on the matter, decided that 
Athens had broken the truce, and the bitter conflict of 
twenty-seven years (431-404), known as the Peloponnesian 
war, followed. Athens with her maritime dependencies, 
almost invincible on the sea, was arrayed against the 
Peloponnesian league with most of the states of Central 
Greece as allies. For ten years neither side gained a 
decisive advantage. Athens was devastated by the great 
plague which caused the death of Pericles and so forced 
the control of state affairs into the hands of less competent 
men, often unprincipled demagogues. The defensive 
policy advocated by Pericles was set aside and the aggres- 
sive plans of Cleon and his party were carried out, and for 
a time proved successful. But after the loss of her colo- 
nies in Chalcidice, Athens was ready to agree to a peace. 
Whenever peace had been proposed, Aristophanes says: 

"If the Spartans had the advantage 
They bit their lips and muttered among themselves. 
'Ah! now my little Athenian, you shall pay for it.' 
And if the little Athenian got the better 
Ever so little (when the Spartans came 
To treat for peace), they only screamed and made an uproar." 

But in 421 B. C. a peace was signed for fifty years, on 
the basis of things as they were before the war. The 
agreement was imperfectly carried out and the peace 
proved a failure. The turning point in the war was the 



34 THE GLORY THAT WAS GREECE. 

ill-advised Athenian expedition against Syracuse. Athens, 
with her ambition for commercial supremacy and fool- 
ishly founded dreams of a great western empire, heeded 
the unwise advice of Alcibiades and sent to Syracuse an 
immense force of ships and men. The success of the 
expedition was endangered at the very beginning by the 
recall of Alcibiades on a charge of impiety in the mutila- 
tion of the Hermse, for from the moment when he deserted 
the fleet and fled to Sparta he became a traitor to the in- 
terests of his own country. 

" Poor reluctant Nicias pushed by fate 
Went faltering against Syracuse," 

but everything went wrong. The Spartans sent an able 
commander to Sicily and the entire armament of Ath- 
ens was destroyed. "Of all the Hellenic actions that 
took place in this war," says Thucydides, "this was the 
greatest, the most glorious to the victors — the most ruinous 
to the vanquished." Athens could save herself from 
utter ruin only by the most strenuous efforts. 

During the last ten years of the war Persian money 
supported the Spartan side and the Spartan admiral, Ly- 
sander, developed a naval strength in Sparta which finally 
defeated the Athenians at the mouth of the ^gospotami 
in the year 405 B. C, and after a terrible siege forced 
Athens into submission. Severe terms of peace were in- 
sisted on, the razing of the long walls, the destruction of 
all the fleet except twelve ships, and the acknowledgment 



THE GLORY THAT WAS GREECE. 35 

of the hegemony of Sparta. The downfall of Athens left 
Sparta supreme. ''In place of imperial Athens was sub- 
stituted yet more imperial Sparta." 

Oligarchies were established in most of the cities with 
the authority usually vested in a Decarchy, or board of ten, 
and a Spartan garrison under a harmost (military governor) 
as a support for the government. Athens fared no better 
than other cities. A tyranny of thirty men was created, 
ostensibly to recodify the laws. Proscription, banishment, 
confiscation of property, and every sort of indignity 
characterized their rule under the cruel Critias and the 
shifty Theramenes. At last, after about a year of this 
reign of terror, the exiles under Thrasybulus gathered 
strength enough to oppose the Thirty and drive them out 
and restore the old democracy. Meanwhile the allies of 
Sparta, dissatisfied because they had not shared in the 
profits of the Peloponnesian war and discontented with 
the tyrannical government of the ruling city, entered into 
an alliance with Athens, their former enemy, to make 
war upon Sparta. Persia supplied the allies with funds. 
After eight years of fighting and the defeat of the Spartan 
naval power, Sparta succeeded in inducing the Persian 
king to interfere in favor of peace. By the terms of this 
peace, known as the ''Peace of Antalcidas," from the 
ambassador who negotiated it, the Asiatic cities were left 
in the hands of the Persian king, while all the other 
Hellenic cities were declared to be free and self-governing. 



36 THE GLORY THAT WAS GREECE. 

This agreement freed Sparta from active war and allowed 
her to continue her policy of oppression. With great 
arrogance and no regard for justice she destroyed cities 
and leagues that seemed in any way likely to oppose her 
power, and treacherously seized the citadel of Thebes in 
time of peace. The Thebans began to prepare themselves 
to overthrow the Spartan control. Epaminondas trained 
the youths to endurance and devotion to country, while 
among the exiles in Athens Pelopidas organized a con- 
spiracy which finally liberated Thebes from the Spartans. 
In the battle of Leuctra (371 B. C), the Spartans were 
beaten, for the first time in open battle, by the wedge 
formation introduced by Epaminondas, and the Spartan 
supremacy was at an end. For nine years Thebes kept 
her position as the leading state in Greece; but her leader- 
ship rested solely on the genius of her two great generals, 
and when they died the Theban power fell to pieces. 
The end of Theban leadership is marked by the battle 
of Mantineia in 362 B. C. The military tactics of Epami- 
nondas again won the day, but the leader himself fell on 
the field. ''Uncertainty and confusion," says Xenophon, 
"were greater after the battle than before." 

Athens with her naval power and her imperial strength 
had failed to establish a permanent Empire. Sparta by 
her tyrannical rule and her cruel policy of oppression had 
also failed, and with the failure of Thebes Greece was 
again torn by strife and dissension. The individuality 



THE GLORY THAT WAS GREECE. 37 

and local independence of the states formed a serious 
obstacle to Hellenic union. What could not be accom- 
plished from within was, however, forced on the Greeks 
from without, and Greece became subject to Macedon. 

The Macedonians had been organized into a skilful, 
well-trained army by their king, Philip II. Through 
diplomacy the control of many Athenian allies in Chalcidice 
had also come into his hands. But Athens did not realize 
her danger. In vain Demosthenes in his great orations 
exhorted his countrymen to stand against foreign ag- 
gression and make their city once more the head of Hellas. 
Philip also secured a seat in the Amphictyonic Council, 
which gave him the right to interfere in the affairs of the 
land. A single powerful ruler able to pursue his own 
policy was a far greater force than the loosely formed 
union of Hellenic states, and in the battle of Chaeroneia 
(338 B. C.) the defects of Hellenic organization and spirit 
proved the downfall of free Hellas. The conquest was 
disguised under national sympathies and forms. A 
congress of Greek states recognized Macedon as the head 
of Greece and gave to each state the right to direct its 
local government, while all foreign affairs were to be en- 
trusted to Philip. To the Greeks the battle of Chseroneia 
was a great calamity, but viewed in the light of succeeding 
centuries it shows that a newer and more vital force was 
needed to carry Hellenic institutions and ideas into the 
world beyond the narrow borders of Hellas. Two years 



38 THE GLORY THAT WAS GREECE. 

after Chaeroneia, as Philip was preparing, by means of a 
great national expedition against Persia, the extension of 
Greek civilization in the East, he was assassinated, and 
the inheritance fell to his son Alexander. 

''With Alexander," says Mahaffy, ''the stage of Greek 
influence spreads across the world and Greece becomes 
only a small item in the heritage of the Greeks." Alex- 
ander felt and made himself the representative of the 
Greeks and his conquests are the conquests of Hellenism^ 
"the spirit of Hellenic culture rather than its body." The 
conquest of the Persian Empire occupied five years and the 
three important epochs are marked by three world re- 
nowned battles. The victory at the Granicus made 
Alexander master of Asia Minor. The defeat of the Per- 
sians at Issus secured to him the control of the Mediter- 
ranean coast; while the third decisive victory at Arbela 
in 331 B. C. was the final downfall of the Persian power. 
These victories are not merely events of great military 
importance, but they mark a distinct advance in the 
progress of civilization. The East and the West were 
brought together into a composite civilixation,and although 
the political unity was soon lost, the common language, 
common literature, and common mode of thought en- 
dured for centuries. The distinction between Greek 
and barbarian was gradually obliterated. "The civiliza- 
tion that had been developed by one small people became 
the heritage of a great world." To quote from B. T 



THE GLORY THAT WAS GREECE. 39 

Wheeler's "Alexander the Great," — "No single personality, 
excepting the carpenter's son of Nazareth, has done so 
much to make the world we live in what it is as Alexander 
of Macedon. He leveled the terrace upon which Euro- 
pean history built. Whatever lay within the range of 
his conquests contributed its part to form that Mediter- 
ranean civilization which under Rome's administration 
became the basis of European life." 

The successors of Alexander, the Diadochi, as they are 
called, "egoists who aped a genius," strove with one 
another for power, and the period after Alexander's death 
was characterized by shifting alliances, wars to preserve 
the balance of power, and every kind of political intrigue. 
The important Hellenistic kingdoms of Egypt, Syria, 
and Macedonia began to decline in power towards the 
end of the third century B. C. and eventually were con- 
quered by the Romans. But the period of political de- 
cline was the time of the chief splendor of Hellenism. 
The courts and the great cities became pre-eminently 
centres of culture, and progress in art and literature accom- 
panied the refinement of society and the increase of wealth. 
The pastorals of Theocritus, the new comedy of Menander, 
the philosophical systems of Epicureanism and Stoicism 
and the scientific treatises on mathematics and geography 
are but a part of our literary debt to the Alexandrian age. 

In the third century B. C. Greece made a last effort to 
secure her independence under the leadership of the 



40 THE GLORY THAT WAS GREECE. 

iEtolian and Achaean leagues, two federal unions of Greek 
cities. Through this union into a state in which all the 
members had equality of rights and privileges freedom 
was maintained for about half a century, but in the end 
Macedonian supremacy was restored. The frequent 
quarrels among the Greeks and the discontent under 
Macedonian rule brought about the interference of Rome 
and the conquest of the country and its organization as a 
Roman province. 



CHAPTER III. 

"And the Grandeur that was Rome." 

Nothing can more appropriately describe "the grandeur 
that was Rome" than the prophecy of Vergil in the sixth 
book of the JEneid: "Others, I grant, indeed, shall with 
more delicacy mold the breathing brass; from marble 
draw the features to the life; plead causes better; describe 
with the rod the courses of the heavens, and explain the 
rising stars; to rule the nations with imperial sway be 
thy care, O Roman; these shall be thy arts; to impose 
terms of peace, to spare the humbled, and crush the 
proud." Rome's genius was a genius for conquest and 
organization, and the three great forms of government 
through which she passed were but so many experiments 
in the best way of incorporating into herself and governing 
her conquests. Growth and development characterize 
her entire history. From the earliest days of the little 
city-state on the banks of the Tiber, additions were con- 
stantly made to the territory, and progress in constitutional 
reform accompanied the external growth. It is, therefore, 
upon these two significant facts that we must fix our atten- 
tion in studying the history of Rome — Kingdom, Republic, 
and Empire. 



42 AND THE GRANDEUR THAT WAS ROME. 

At the very outset of our study we are met by the diffi- 
culty of unrehable sources of information, for all the 
records of the years before 390 B. C, the date of the in- 
vasion of the Gauls, were destroyed in the burning of the 
city at that time. For the early period of the kings the 
principal authority is Livy, who relied largely on earlier 
chroniclers or annalists and these, in turn, based their 
knowledge on oral tradition, supplemented by a few 
records such as the Fasti (lists of magistrates) and An- 
nales Maximi (records of plagues, eclipses, etc.), kept by 
the chief priest. A study of this legendary material shows 
the incredibility of early Roman history. The stories 
are inconsistent with the laws of nature, contradictory to 
one another, and unsupported by contemporary evidence, 
borrowed in many cases from the Greek legends and in 
others invented to explain existing conditions and cus- 
toms. The interesting legends of Romulus and Remus, 
Horatius at the bridge, false Sextus and Lucretia, and the 
many other stories of regal Rome that have furnished 
material for later literature afford little basis for historical 
truth, but at best show us what the later Romans thought 
of their early history. The existing remains of ancient 
Rome, the square tufa blocks of the so-called wall of 
Romulus on the Palatine, the stone courses of the Servian 
wall, and the arched opening of the great sewer built to 
drain the Forum tell us of the early building activity and 
the city's material growth, while careful inferences from 



AND THE GRANDEUR THAT WAS ROME. 45 

later laws and customs help to a reconstruction of the 
early government. The three political elements — king^ 
council of chiefs, and popular assembly — appeared in the 
early city. The king was general, judge, and head of the 
state religion. Whatever assistants he needed he ap- 
pointed. The council, or Senate, acted as an advisory 
body to the king and also had the power of veto over the 
decisions of the assembly. The assembly was made up 
of the patricians, "the men of regular citizenship through 
their fathers," and was organized by curiae or groups of 
clans. In this curiate assembly the citizens met and ex- 
pressed their opinions on the proposals made to them by 
the king. 

The city-state so organized centred on the Palatine 
hill, but soon, by union with another hill settlement on the 
Quirinal, enlarged its population and territory. The 
conquest of neighboring cities and the transfer of the con- 
quered inhabitants to Rome still further increased the 
extent of the city until it included all the seven hills. By 
reason of her situation, her broad policy of incorporation, 
and the sturdy patriotism of her citizens, Rome at the 
time of the overthrow of her monarchy was the head of 
all Latium. 

The Aristocratic Republic which took the place of the 
monarchy had at its head two annual magistrates called 
consuls. The consular imperium differed from that of 
the king in several particulars. The consuls served only 



44 AND THE GRANDEUR THAT WAS ROME. 

for one year, must grant an appeal to the people in cases 
of condemnation to death, and either consul might forbid 
or cancel any act of his colleague. While the Senate 
was not directly affected by the change in government, its 
advice was more often sought by one-year magistrates 
than by a life-king, and thus it came to be the real direct- 
ing power in the state. The curiate assembly gradually lost 
power and met merely for formal religious purposes, 
while the legislative and elective rights of the people 
were exercised by the centuriate assembly, a new body 
that had grown up out of the reorganized army. The 
duty of serving in the army devolved upon all landown- 
ers, who were arranged for the purpose in classes accord- 
ing to the amount of their property. Likewise in the new 
assembly the position of each individual was fixed by his 
wealth rather than by his birth. Thus the Plebeians (the 
descendants of the conquered people or the alien resi- 
dents) became members of the centuries and acquired 
their first political rights. 

The first century and a half of the Republic was a period 
of bitter conflict between the Patricians and Plebeians. 
The loss of royal protection, the severity of debt laws, and 
the unfair distribution of the public land had forced many 
of the latter class into economic slavery, and they sought 
eagerly for relief from their oppression. At last, in 494 
B. C, they seceded to a hill near the city and refused to 
serve in war unless some guarantee of protection were 



AND THE GRANDEUR THAT WAS ROME. 45 

offered. A compromise was then made by which it was 
agreed that two plebeian tribunes[^should be elected each 
year and that these officers should have the right of pro- 
tection, in case any individual plebeian were illegally 
treated. At first the Patricians seem to have tried to con- 
trol the elections of tribunes and to keep the Plebeians 
from having their separate meetings, but after a contest of 
twenty years the plebeian assembly organized by tribes 
(the local districts of the city) was given the right to elect 
the tribunes and to pass decrees binding upon all plebeians. 
With protection from oppression assured to them, recog- 
nized leaders to agitate reforms in their behalf, and an 
equal knowledge of the laws from the code of the Twelve 
Tables, the Plebeians continued the struggle for social and 
political equality. 

A Roman citizen possessed five recognized rights of 
citizenship, the right of voting, right of office holding, right 
of marriage, right of trade, and right of appeal. As 
inter-marriage with the patrician families would remove 
all religious disabilities to office holding, this was the first 
object of their struggle. When this right had been se- 
cured to them by the Canuleian law, the Patricians 
blocked their progress towards the coveted consulship, 
first by offering a substitute in the office of consular tri- 
bune, an office which conferred no honor, and second by 
taking away certain important duties of the consul and 
creating new patrician magistrates to perform them. The 



,46 AND THE GRANDEUR THAT WAS ROME. 

Struggle ended in 367 B. C. by the passage of the Licinian- 
Sextian laws which decreed that one consul at least must 
always be a plebeian, and contained many economic re- 
forms in regard to debts and land-holding. After this 
all important offices in the state were gradually opened 
to the plebeians and the equalization of the orders was 
practically accomplished. While the government was 
theoretically democratic, it was really controlled by the 
Senate. The higher magistrates, as well as the exclu- 
sively plebeian officials, were all in sympathy with the 
Senate and controlled by it. The Senate was made up 
of those who had held curule office (Consuls, Praetors, 
and ^diles), and thus contained ''the wisdom and ex- 
perience of Rome." As the magistrates became senators 
after their terms of office, they were readily influenced by 
the Senate and did nothing without its approval. The 
magistrates, in turn, controlled the assemblies and called 
and adjourned them as they chose. The members had 
no power of initiating business or of amending and dis- 
•cussing matters. The Senate was the most powerful 
factor in the state. As Mommsen says — "While the 
burgesses acquired the semblance, the Senate acquired 
the substance, of power." 

During this period of constitutional changes, Rome was 
expanding her territory from the original city on the Tiber 
to the possession of the Italian peninsula, south of the 
Rubicon. Dwelling on the plains, the Romans were con- 



AND THE GRANDEUR THAT WAS ROME. 47 

stantly forced to fight their neighbors of the mountains. 
Their fiercest enemies were the Samnites, whom they sub- 
dued in three severe wars. Then they turned their atten- 
tion to the Greek cities of southern Italy and became in- 
volved in war with Tarentum. Pyrrhus, the king of 
Epirus, aided the Greeks, but Rome was victorious and 
thus became mistress of all Italy. Within this territory 
were many classes of communities, some an integral part 
of the Roman state proper, others its subjects. Rome 
itself with its adjacent territory was divided into thirty- 
five tribes. All over the peninsula were colonies of Ro- 
man soldiers, settled as garrisons for defense and the ex- 
tension of Roman manners and customs and reckoned as 
citizens of the home city. There were also towns which 
had been incorporated bodily into the state. These 
annexed towns, or municipia, were allowed local self- 
government and had full Roman citizenship in most 
cases, although in some cases the Roman citizenship was 
only partial and did not include the right of voting in 
Rome. 

Among the subject communities the highest in rank were 
the Latins, the old Latin towns and the Latin colonies, 
who had the so-called Latin right, that is, the private rights 
of Romans. Next came the Italian aUies, whose condi- 
tion was determined by their respective treaties with Rome. 
By this complete system of organization and by the,, ex- 
tension of military roads throughout the peninsula, Italy 



48 AND THE GRANDEUR THAT WAS ROME. 

was made "sl confederacy with all the connecting lines 
radiating from Rome." 

Just across the Mediterranean in northern Africa 
was the powerful commercial city of Carthage, the only 
rival of Rome in the west. Both cities were eager for the 
possession of Sicily, the stepping-stone between the two 
continents. The first of the Carthaginian or Punic wars 
was in reality a "war for Sicily." During this conflict 
the Romans built their first important war fleet and, realiz- 
ing the value of naval supremacy, struggled to gain an 
unassailable sea power. At the close of the war Rome's 
victory gave her her first possession outside of Italy and 
thus made the beginning of the imperial system of govern- 
ment. Although temporarily beaten, Carthage was not 
subdued, and some twenty years later renewed the struggle 
with Rome under her great general Hannibal, one of the 
world's military geniuses. His bold and daring march 
from Spain over the Alps into Italy, his four successive 
victories over Roman armies, his recall to Africa to de- 
fend his country, and his first and only defeat in the battle 
of Zama are among the most interesting incidents in Ro- 
man history. Rome had now added to her possessions 
Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia, and Spain, and a half-century 
later by a cruel and selfish war, waged solely for the greed 
of her own officials, she completely humbled Carthage 
and from the ancient territory of the city created the 
province of Africa. Interference in Greek affairs brought 



AND THE GRANDEUR THAT WAS ROME. 49 

Macedonia and western Asia Minor under her control, 
and by the year 133 B. C. Rome was mistress of the greater 
part of the Mediterranean world. 

This foreign conquest, as has been said, developed a 
new factor in government. The federal policy of incor- 
poration by which Rome ruled in Italy was not adapted 
to peoples of alien race, and so the subject possessions 
outside the peninsula were organized as provinces. These 
provinces were governed by provincial governors sent 
from Rome, who received no salary for their services but 
were allowed to get their support from the provincials. 
Exposed thus to the greed and extortion of Roman officials, 
subjected to the rapacious tax gatherers, and shut off from 
all trade with each other, the provinces, in spite of the 
peace and protection guaranteed them by Rome, were in 
a sorry plight. We have only to read Cicero's orations 
against Verres to see what the worst type of provincial 
governor was. Rome, on the other hand, profited greatly 
from the increase in territory by the gain in tribute. But 
the economic results were not so favorable as the financial. 
The cheap grain from the provinces displaced the products 
of the Italian farmers in the Roman market, and the 
abundance of slaves caused slave labor to crush out the 
free workmen on the great landed estates. The effects of 
foreign conquest were apparent in political as well as 
economic life. The increase in wealth and luxurious 
living, closely connected as it was with a deterioration of 



50 AND THE GRANDEUR THAT V/AS ROME. 

morals, tended to make wealth the leading factor in 
politics and bribery a prominent means for ofi&ce-getting. 
The Senate which controlled the government was fast 
becoming a "narrow, self-seeking plutocracy." The 
people, owing to their distance from Rome, could not 
exercise their right of franchise, and only the rabble of 
the city, susceptible to the bribes of office seekers, took 
part in the public assemblies. There were, of course, 
Romans of the old school who steadfastly opposed this 
introduction of foreign luxury and the use of bribery and 
corruption in politics, but not even the stern Cato could 
accomplish anything in the way of regulating the evil. 
The one good result of the eastern conquest was the intro- 
duction of Hellenic art and literature. 

In such a condition of affairs there was a crying need 
for reform. Tiberius Gracchus, a prominent plebeian, 
sought to remedy the evils of the time by making agrarian 
reforms. His sole aim was to restore the peasantry and 
so bring back Rome to her former prosperity. His bill 
to divide the public land among the poor was violently 
opposed by the richer classes and passed only by uncon- 
stitutional means. The number of small land holders 
was increased, it is true, but Tiberius was murdered and a 
revolution started, which ended only in the establishment 
of the imperial government. Ten years later Caius 
Gracchus aimed to avenge his brother's death, but feeling 
that Tiberius had failed because of his lack of supporters, 



AND THE GRANDEUR THAT WAS ROME. 5 1 

he first determined to secure a body of followers on whom 
he might rely. He conciliated the knights by giving them 
seats on the juries, and the common people by the promise 
of cheap grain. Unlike his brother, he had formulated 
a definite plan of government and strove to make the 
tribunate an absolute ministry with the direction of all 
affairs of state, as the generalship at Athens had been. 
Caius administered the office wisely and instituted many 
reforms, but when he proposed a law enfranchising the 
Italian allies the rabble deserted him and the senatorial 
party schemed for his downfall. He suffered a fate like 
that of his brother, but the army of revolution was already 
organized and ready to do the bidding of any able leader. 
Just at this time the Jugurthan war in Africa and the 
invasion of the German tribes into northern Italy brought 
into prominence Caius Marius, a Roman of the old school, 
stern, patriotic, and enduring, and an able military com- 
mander. Taking advantage of his popularity and his 
repeated election to the consulship, the demagogues who 
were the leaders of the popular party tried to use him for 
their own ends. Marius was as incapable in politics as 
he was great in war, and in the civil strife which followed 
the revolutionary measures of his colleagues he lost credit 
with both parties and went into voluntary retirement. 
The liberal party in the Senate tried by a series of com- 
promises to appease all the dissatisfied classes and even 
proposed to extend citizenship to the Italians. This last 



52 AND THE GRANDEUR THAT WAS ROME. 

proposal met with a storm of opposition from aristocrats 
and commons, and therefore failed. The Italians rose in 
arms and demanded the citizenship. Although they were 
defeated in the war, they gained their cause, and by prudent 
concessions on the part of Rome all the freemen of Italy 
south of the Po were made equal in civil and political 
rights. The enrolment of the newly enfranchised Italians 
in the tribes became indirectly the occasion for the civil 
war between the popular and the senatorial party. At 
first they had been assigned to eight new tribes voting 
after the old thirty-five. Promising enrolment in the old 
tribes, the democratic leader gained their support in 
forcing through the assembly a resolution appointing 
Marius to the command of the war against Mithridates, 
king of Pontus. Now Sulla had already received the 
appointment from the Senate and, declaring the decree 
of the assembly illegal, he marched to Rome with his 
army and drove out the democrats under Marius. With 
the departure of Sulla for the East, the democratic party 
again rallied and obtained control of the city. But Sulla 
soon returned, after a successful campaign against Mithri- 
dates, and restored his party to power. Two years of 
desperate fighting made him master of Rome and he be- 
gan by proscriptions, murders, and systematic slaughter 
to destroy the remnants of the Marian party. He then 
re-established the power of the Senate and made all the 
other parts of the government dependent upon it. In 



AND THE GRANDEUR THAT WAS ROME. 53 

most respects his legislation was in the interest of his party 
and was, therefore, only short lived. 

The military power had been placed above the con- 
stitution, and for the next thirty years the great question 
of Roman history was what leader should become master 
of Rome. Pompey's conquests and organization of the 
East as far as the Euphrates, and Caesar's brilliant cam- 
paigns in Gaul and subjugation of the West to the Rhine 
made the rivalry for supreme power naturally narrow 
down to these two men. Pompey had risen to power by 
his services in Spain against Sertorius, and by his success 
against the Cilician pirates and the king of Pontus. 
During his absence in the East, Julius Caesar had become 
the chief democratic leader. When Pompey returned 
to Rome the Senate refused to ratify his political arrange- 
ments in the East, and thus he was driven to seek the help 
of the democrats to further his plans. He joined with 
Caesar and Crassus in the First Triumvirate, a combina- 
tion not sanctioned by any public authority, by which 
the three men should become masters of the state. At 
the close of five years the alliance was renewed, but after 
the death of Crassus in Syria, Pompey, in his jealousy of 
Caesar, turned again to the Senate and accepted the 
leadership of the aristocratic party, thus abandoning his 
former ally. In the civil war that followed, Caesar proved 
the victor. He first made himself master of Italy, then 
followed Pompey to Greece and defeated him at Pharsalus, 



54 AND THE GRANDEUR THAT WAS ROME. 

and finally crushed the last opposition of the senatorial 
party by his victories at Thapsus and Munda. He was 
in reality master of the Roman world. Monarchy had 
been made inevitable by the conditions of the last century. 
The corrupt and vicious mob in Rome, the bad adminis- 
tration of the provinces, and the dangers on the frontiers, 
all required the controlling power of a single ruler. Caesar 
fully realized that the only solution of the problem of 
government was the equalization of laws and privileges 
for the subject populations, and aimed, therefore, to make 
the consideration of the interests of the provinces rather 
than of the inhabitants of the capital his chief care. The 
old republican forms of government continued, but Caesar 
took the more important powers into his own hands. 
Many measures of reform, dealing with colonization, 
taxation, land ownership, coinage, and the calendar, were 
introduced. The provincial system was reorganized. 
The governors lost much of their authority and their 
abuses and oppression were checked. 

In the midst of all these improvements, Caesar fell a 
victim to a conspiracy formed against him by discontented 
and envious senators and republican enthusiasts, and was 
assassinated on the Ides of March, 44 B. C. The con- 
spirators struck down the monarch but could not destroy 
the monarchy. Caesar's work was left to be completed 
by successors, who were by no means his equals in states- 
manship. To quote the words of Mommsen — "Caesar 



AND THE GRANDEUR THAT WAS ROME. 55 

was a statesman in the deepest sense of the term. His 
aim was the political, military, intellectual, and moral 
regeneration of his own deeply decayed nation." Doubt- 
less he was "ambitious," but he strove to make Rome 
greater because of Csesar. 

Caesar's death was followed by anarchy and civil strife 
for fifteen years. Mark Antony and Octavius, Caesar's 
grand-nephew and adopted son, combined with Lepidus, 
governor of Gaul and Spain, and the three had themselves 
appointed triumvirs to reorganize the state. This second 
triumvirate defeated the "Republicans" at Philippi, but 
soon after Lepidus was dropped from the coalition and 
Antony and Octavius divided the Roman world between 
them. Each, however, was jealous of the other's power, 
and Antony's acts in the East offered a pretext for war. 
The naval battle of Actium in 31 B. C. made Octavius 
sole master of the Roman world and placed the rule of 
the Empire in the hands of an able man. The final estab- 
lishment of the Empire may be dated from the year 27 
B. C, when the Senate conferred upon Octavius the new 
title of Augustus. Theoretically, the old Republic was 
never abolished, but by the side of the old forms of govern- 
ment there grew up an imperial authority centralized in 
one man. The weakest point in the imperial constitution 
was the lack of a definite principle of succession. The 
right of the Emperor to nominate his successor was often 
restricted by the claims of relationship and the preferences 



56 AND THE GRANDEUR THAT WAS ROME. 

of the army, so that the monarchy was neither elective 
nor hereditary but suffered from the evils of both systems. 

Except for the military revolution of the year 69 A. D. 
at the close of Nero's reign, the succession in the first two 
centuries was orderly and regular. The Julian Caesars, 
Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero, ruled 
for just a century. After the year of civil war came the 
three Flavians, and these were followed by the Antonines, 
who were provincials. It had come to be recognized that 
"Emperors could be made elsewhere than in Rome." 

The boundaries of the Empire, as Augustus found 
them, were the Atlantic on the west, the Rhine on the 
north, the African desert on the south, and the upper 
Euphrates and Arabia on the east. 

Under Augustus and succeeding emperors the frontiers 
were extended by the conquest of the lands south of the 
lower Danube, the country between the Danube and the 
Alps, Britain, Dacia, and considerable territory in the 
East. In the second century, the Empire reached its 
extreme limits under the Emperor Trajan, but the prov- 
inces beyond the Euphrates were soon abandoned. 

On the whole, the first two centuries of the Empire 
were highly prosperous. There was little disturbance 
from wars, trade flourished, communication from place 
to place was safe, philanthropic movements of various 
kinds were inaugurated, and contentment and good feeling 
were everywhere throughout the Roman world. The 



AND THE GRANDEUR THAT WAS ROME. 57 

civilization of the ancient world ceased to be national and 
became cosmopolitan, the union of the best of Greece and 
Rome. There was a unity in thought and feeling among 
all the people, a far reaching patriotism that found its 
fatherland wherever the sceptre of imperial Rome held 
sway. Gibbon believed that "a man, if allowed his 
choice, would prefer to have lived under the golden age 
of the Antonines rather than at any other period of the 
world's history." 

The art and literature of these centuries deserve special 
mention. The age of Augustus was peculiarly an age of 
building. He restored existing temples, and erected 
many new ones, and justified his boast that he ''found 
Rome brick and left it marble." The Coliseum, the tri- 
umphal arch of Titus, the monumental column of Tra- 
jan, and the remains of the basilicas furnish us examples 
of the best architectural structures of the early Empire. 
The Augustan age of literature with Horace, Vergil, Ovid, 
and Livy as its chief exponents was followed in the second 
century by the histories of Tacitus, the satires of Juvenal, 
the letters of Pliny the younger, and a revival of Hellenic 
literature in the writings of Plutarch, Lucian, and Pau- 
sanias. It was also during these centuries that Chris- 
tianity was gradually gaining power. The Christian 
teachings of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood 
of all men and of a morality based on love and self-denial 
had reached into all the large cities of the Empire and 



58 AND THE GRANDEUR THAT WAS ROME. 

gained many disciples. As the Christians refused to 
support the state religion, the worship of the Emperor, and 
as they were considered a great secret organization dan- 
gerous to the state, they were persecuted by many even of 
the best emperors. The persecutions, however, only 
served to strengthen the faith and to increase the zeal of 
the believers. 

The third century of the Empire was characterized by 
a tendency towards absolutism in government, anarchy,, 
civil strife, and disputed succession between military ad- 
venturers. The rulers from Commodus to Diocletian 
are well named the ''barrack Emperors," for they were 
set up by the army and the imperial power was entirely 
in the hands of the legions. In one instance the Empire 
was actually sold to the highest bidder. Barbarian 
attacks on the frontiers became more frequent and Rome 
was obliged to stand on the defensive. 

Towards the close of the third century, Diocletian, an 
able soldier, came to the throne. He saw that the only 
way to arrest the threatening dissolution of the Empire 
was by a radical change in the administration. Accord- 
ingly by his choice of a colleague and the association of 
two younger assistants, called Caesars, the imperial au- 
thority was placed in the hands of four men. It was not 
a partition of the Empire but a division of administration, 
a system of "partnership Emperors." This reorganization 
was completed by Constantine. Each of the four parts 



AND THE GRANDEUR THAT WAS ROME. 59. 

of the Empire was presided over by a prefect. The 
prefectures were subdivided into dioceses under the rule 
of vicars, and the dioceses, in turn, into provinces under 
provincial governors. As civil and military affairs were 
strictly separated, a complete hierarchy of officials, each 
grade responsible to the one above, came into existence. 
All these changes were in the direction of more despotic 
organization and the outward forms of monarchy, court 
ceremonial, and magnificence of attire, were introduced. 
The government became a '^ centralized, bureaucratic 
despotism" which for a time delayed the downfall of the 
Empire. It was due also to the shrewd statesmanship 
of Constantine that Christianity was made the favored 
rehgion of the state. The Edict of Milan had granted 
religious toleration to all modes of worship. Constantine 
saw the great service which the Church might give him and 
so desired to bring harmony between the state and this 
powerful force within the Empire. The Church soon 
modelled its government after that of the Empire and 
grew monarchic with gradations in rank corresponding 
to those of the civil authority. ''The poHtical organiza- 
tion of the Church was brought into form," says Freeman, 
''by the genius of Roman rule." In order to strengthen 
the Church by securing uniformity of belief, Constantine 
called a council of bishops to meet at Nicaea to settle the 
disputes about doctrines which were distracting the Church 
and especially the controversy between the Arians and 



6o AND THE GRANDEUR THAT WAS ROME. 

Athanasians concerning the nature of Christ. The coun- 
cil adopted the view of Athanasius, who asserted the ab- 
solute equality between the Father and the Son, and this 
decision, the Nicene creed, was accepted as the orthodox 
belief of the Church. 

The reconstruction of the government by Diocletian and 
Constantine strengthened the Empire, but did nothing to 
arrest the economic and social decay. The decline of 
population, the growth of the caste system in society, and 
the increase of taxation to meet the rapidly growing ex- 
penses of the government hastened the downfall. The 
permanent division of the Empire into an eastern and a 
western half was another indication of weakness. But 
the strongest element of disintegration was the introduction 
of Germans into the army and their settlement in the 
provinces. Many tribes were admitted within the bounda- 
aries as allies and served as defenders of the frontiers. 
The first Germanic kingdom founded within the Empire 
was that of the Visigoths, who after many wanderings had 
settled down in Spain and southern Gaul. In the early 
fifth century, the Vandals, under their leader Gaiseric, 
founded a kingdom in northern Africa and the Mediter- 
ranean islands. The Burgundians were established on 
the banks of the Rhone, the Angles and Saxons in eastern 
Britain, and the Franks about the lower Rhine, so that 
in the middle of the fifth century but a small part of Gaul 
remained under Roman rule. In Italy itself the German 



AND THE GRANDEUR THAT WAS ROME. 6 1 

ofl&cers of the army ruled through puppet Emperors whom 
they made and deposed at will. Finally, in 476 A. D., 
Odovaker, one of these German leaders, sent to the Em- 
peror of the East at Constantinople, saying that the West 
did not need a separate Emperor and asking that Italy 
be ruled as a part of the Eastern Empire under himself 
as a lieutenant. This date, 476 A. D., which marks the 
so-called ''Fall of the Western Empire," meant to the 
Romans of that time merely that both parts of the Empire 
were united under the Eastern Emperor and that a bar- 
barian general was entrusted with the political manage- 
ment of the province of Italy as well as the command of 
the legions. As we look back to the year 476 A. D. we 
see that in reality the change was a shifting of power from 
Roman to Teuton and the passing of the leadership of 
the West into other hands. "It is not a storm or an earth- 
quake or a fire, this end of the Roman rule over Italy," 
says Hodgkin, ''It is more like the gentle fluttering down 
to earth of the last leaf of a withered tree." 

During the following century, Italy passed under the 
control of the Ostrogoths, the Eastern Emperor, and the 
Lombards. The thirty years of the Ostrogothic kingdom 
were years of prosperity, marked by the beginnings of 
the fusion of Roman and Teuton in language, and in life. 
The reconquest by the Eastern Emperor Justinian estab- 
lished the code of Roman law in Italy and made possible 
its introduction into the kingdoms of the West. The last 



62 AND THE GS.ANDEUR THAT WAS ROME. 

conquerors, the Lombards, are responsible for the final 
break-up of Italian unity, for they did not establish a 
central kingdom, but numerous duchies scattered over the 
peninsula. 

It is by the Franks that the task of consolidating the 
Teutonic states into a single empire was accompHshed, 
and they succeeded where others failed because they did 
not migrate to distant places but expanded from their 
original home and also because they early gained the sup- 
port and alliance of the Church through their conversion 
to Cathohc Christianity. Clovis, the founder of their 
greatness, made himself sole ruler and expanded his limited 
territory into a great state. His descendants, the Merovin- 
gians, held the power for about two centuries, but in the 
last part of their rule the kings became inefficient and were 
known as "Do nothings." The power, therefore, passed 
to the nobles, the stewards or mayors of the palace. This 
office finally became hereditary in the Carolingian family, 
and was held by men of high ability. Charles Martel 
turned back the Mohammedan invasion from Europe. 
His son, by the sanction of the pope, deposed the weak 
Merovingian king and assumed the royal title. In re- 
turn for this favor. Pippin aided the pope against the Lom- 
bards and gave him all the cities he conquered in their 
territory. This "donation of Pippin" laid the founda- 
tion for the temporal power of the papacy. In 768 A. D. 
Pippin was succeeded by his son Karl, known usually by 



AND THE GRANDEUR THAT WAS ROME. 63 

the French form of his name Charlemagne, although he 
was a German in blood and speech. '' Great and powerful 
as was the realm of the Franks which Charles received 
from his father Pippin," says the chronicler Einhard, "he 
nevertheless so splendidly enlarged it by wars that he al- 
most doubled its dimensions." His greatest achievement 
was the founding of the Mediaeval Empire. His corona- 
tion by the pope in 800 A. D., as Emperor of the Romans, 
was, in theory, the restoration of the Empire to Rome. 
The new Empire, however, differed in all its essentials from 
the old. It was European and Teutonic in character and 
area and rested on "German nationality, the leadership 
of the Franks, and the Christian religion according to 
Rome." But it revived in men's minds the glories of the 
past and kept alive the traditions of the civilization which 
Rome had created. Charlemagne's place in history is an 
important one, although his reign was comparatively 
short. "In him was completed the Germanization of the 
Roman Empire." He consolidated Christian Europe, and 
although his empire was not permanent, its influence was 
for all time. 



CHAPTER IV. 

Feudalism. 

From the time of Charlemagne onward, the institution 
of FeudaHsm was the most important element in the 
politics and society of Europe. Charlemagne himself 
had not been able to centralize his power completely and 
had had to struggle against the tendency to separation 
and local independence of the different parts of his Empire. 
Under his successors the Empire broke up into many 
pieces. Since the Emperor was too weak to enforce law 
and preserve order, protection, which could not be ob- 
tained from the nominal head of the state, was sought 
from "bishops, barons, and all powerful men." Under 
these conditions the great landowners grew in power and 
each district became independent in government. Eco- 
nomic conditions also increased the importance of land 
holding. With the decline of commerce and the scarcity 
of money, the only source of income was from the rental 
of land; and the man who had no land willingly sold his 
personal services to the landowner, who was obliged to 
rent his land in return for the services. Land, therefore, 
was the basis of power; the landowner became the land- 



FEUDALISM. 



65 



lord, and government was in a fair way to become co-ex- 
tensive with estates. Feudalism was the natural outcome 
of the political and economic conditions of Europe in the 
ninth and tenth centuries. 

The old German custom of the "comitatus," the obliga- 
tion of mutual aid and support between the chieftain and 
his followers, and the grants of land made by the rich 
Roman landowner to his cHents, both help to account for 
the later feudal tenure of land. Under this feudal tenure 
property in land was not absolute, but of a beneficiary 
nature. The holder had only the use of the land, for which 
he must render certain service to the lord from whom he 
received it. In theory, the king was the landowner of 
the realm. He granted portions of his kingdom to the 
great lords or barons, and they, in turn, parcelled out 
their vast estates among their vassals. 

This subinfeudation might extend to the third or fourth 
degree. Land granted in this way, under fixed con- 
ditions of service, was called a fief. In reality, many fiefs 
arose from the voluntary surrender of lands to some lord 
in return for protection in time of danger, and others came 
from seizure and usurpation. One who held a fief might 
in his turn become a lord by granting a portion of his land 
to a vassal upon terms similar to those on which he held 
his own grant. ''All were at the same time vassals, ex- 
cept the highest, and suzerains except the lowest." These 
fiefs gradually became hereditary in families and passed 



66 FEUDALISM. 

from one generation to another. But before the time of 
hereditary ownership, a payment called the relief was 
demanded from the heir when he entered upon his in- 
heritance and also from the vassal when one lord died and 
a new one succeeded. 

The personal relation of the vassal to his lord and the 
pledges of fealty and service given to him are expressed 
by the word "vassalage." Originally this relation had 
nothing to do with the possession of land, but as grants of 
land came to be the compensation for service the two 
became closely connected. The first and most essential 
obligation of the vassal was the taking the oath of fidelity 
by the ceremony of rendering homage. The vassal knelt 
before the lord and, placing his hands between those of 
the lord, declared himself the lord's ''man," solemnly 
promising to fulfill all his duties towards his lord. Then 
the lord raised him from his kneeling position and in- 
vested him with the fief. Sometimes homage meant little 
more than that the vassal would not injure or oppose his 
lord. If the fief changed hands, the vassal must again 
do homage for it or be considered guilty of revolt. 

The vassal owed his lord military service and was ex- 
pected to join him in any expedition, although he was not 
bound to serve at his own expense more than forty days. 
He must defend his lord in battle with his life, and, if the 
lord were taken prisoner, must offer himself as hostage 
for him. Besides military service, he was expected to 



FEUDALISM. 67 

attend the feudal court to hear and decide upon the cases 
of his fellow-vassals. Under some conditions money 
payment as well as personal service must be given. When 
the eldest son of the lord was knighted, or the eldest 
daughter married, or the lord himself in captivity and held 
for ransom, these feudal "aids" had to be paid. And 
again, the vassal might have to entertain his lord and his 
retinue when he came into his part of the country. In 
return for these services, the lord protected the rights of 
the vassal and secured him justice. 

Under this system of land holding there were fiefs of 
all grades of importance from those of the great lords held 
directly from the king, down to the holdings of the simple 
knights whose land barely sufficed for their support. Yet 
there seems to have been no fixed classification of the no- 
bility, at least before the thirteenth century. The fact 
that vassals of one lord often held lands of other lords, and 
that there was nothing to prevent a sub-vassal from ac- 
cepting a fief from the king, greatly increased the complex- 
ity of feudal relations; as did also the custom of the in- 
feudation of other things than land. A feudal register 
of the thirteenth century indicates that homage was ren- 
dered for an annual amount of grain, wine, or honey, and 
that the feudal bond was needed to make contracts more 
binding. 

In its social aspects. Feudalism emphasized sharply the 
class distinction between the nobles and the common 



68 FEUDALISM. 

people. Writers of the Middle Ages said that God created 
three classes — priests to pray, knights to defend society, 
and peasants to till the soil. Each lord retained a part 
of his fief in his own hands, and this ''domain" was culti- 
vated for him by the serfs and the villains, who owed him 
a fixed number of days' work in return for the small plots 
of land granted to them for their own use. Both villains, 
who were free peasants, and serfs, who were bound to the 
soil, were obliged to use the lord's bakery, granary, and 
mill and to pay heavy fees for the same. The nobles 
gave themselves solely to fighting. Their strongly for- 
tified feudal castles, their favorite amusements, the ''joust 
and tournament," as well as their training for knighthood, 
show how important an occupation war was among them. 
Nobility depended not merely on the hereditary possession 
of a landed estate, but also on the ability to furnish military 
service on horseback; and the word "chivalry," originally 
denoting the form of military service rendered by the 
gentleman, came in time to have a much broader meaning 
and to include the ideals and usages of knighthood. The 
true spirit of chivalry demanded the highest ideals of 
character and blameless lives devoted to the protection 
of the Church and the defense of the weak and the op- 
pressed. In the words of Tennyson, the knight's mission 
was 

"To ride abroad redressing human wrongs, 
To speak no slander, no, nor listen to it, 
To lead sweet lives in purest chastity." 



FEUDALISM. 69 

Many an ''errant knight," however, was an ''arrant 
knave," and under the superficial polish of the age were 
often found coarseness, barbarism, and dishonesty. Chiv- 
alry, as an institution, rose to its height during the period 
of the crusades, and for two or three centuries occupied a 
large place in the life and literature of the time. 

It often happened that the lord was not sufficiently 
powerful to enforce his feudal authority and that the 
vassals frequently refused to perform their obligations. 
As a result, there was constant dissension and open war. 
The prevaiHng disorder was unendurable, and the perpetual 
feudal warfare was so disastrous in its effects that the 
clergy, in the eleventh century, decreed the so-called 
^' Truce of God." This prohibited all hostilities from 
Thursday night until Monday morning and also on all 
fast days and holy seasons, and produced some degree of 
peace and order. After the thirteenth century Feudalism 
gradually declined. The rapid growth of the cities, the 
increasing power of the kings, and the changes in warfare 
due to the invention of gunpowder hastened its downfall. 
It is easy to see the prominent defects of Feudalism. The 
numerous feudal units, each possessing that immunity 
that guaranteed independent sovereignty, necessarily 
caused a general decentralization of power and a system 
of arbitrary and conflicting law. On its social side, also, 
it promoted the growth of landed aristocracy with strong 
class distinctions. But it must not be forgotten that in an 



70 FEUDALISM. 

age of anarchy and confusion the feudal system preserved 
the idea of a general government, and that through the 
institution of chivalry it gave to the world an ideal of 
social character and conduct that became a permanent 
influence in civilization. 



CHAPTER V. 

The Church as a Factor in Mediaeval Civilization. 

As has previously been said, the Church at the time of the 
Council of Nicaea had already assumed a fixed form both in 
organization and belief. The chief points of importance in 
its history after that time are the separation of the Eastern 
and Western Churches and the rise of the Roman papacy. 
The deep seated differences of character and civilization be- 
tween the Eastern branch of the Empire, influenced strongly 
by Greek learning, and the Western branch, which had be- 
come Roman in its ways of life and thought, were still further 
increased by the political division of the Empire in the fourth 
century. As the two parts of the Empire became separated, 
the Churches also drifted more and more apart. Disputes 
as to doctrines and ceremonies arose. The strife about image 
worship, the refusal of the East to accept an addition to the 
Nicene creed, and differences of practice in various forms of 
worship, all hastened a final separation. But above all there 
was the claim to supremacy over the whole Church, made by 
the pope at Rome, which the East would not admit. The 
theory that Constantinople, being only the seat of government, 
must yield to Rome as the "seat of St. Peter," was declared 



72 THE CHURCH IN MEDIAEVAL CIVILIZATION. 

by the Eastern Church to be absurd; and the more the ques- 
tions were discussed, the clearer it became that the underlying 
distinctions were too powerful to be overcome. Finally, in 
the latter half of the eleventh century came the permanent 
separation, and after that time, although many efforts were 
made to heal the schism, the Greek Church and the Latin 
Church continued as independent bodies. 

The situation of the Roman Church in a city that was at the 
same time the largest and most important of the West and the 
seat of the imperial government was of great value in extending 
its influence and estabhshing its supremacy. It was regarded 
as an authority by the churches throughout the West, since 
most of them had been founded as missions from Rome and 
looked to the mother church for guidance and direction. With 
the removal of the emperors to Constantinople the Roman 
bishops exercised greater control over the government of the 
city, and this power was still further increased by the vigorous 
action of the popes during the German invasions. 

In addition to all these practical foundations for leadership, 
the Roman Church claimed a divinely appointed authority 
throughout the churches of Christendom by the theory of the 
'^Petrine supremacy." Peter's apostolic preeminence and the 
tradition that he was the first bishop of Rome, it was declared, 
secured to his successors, the Roman bishops, the headship 
of the Church. By the middle of the fifth century this claim 
was generally accepted in the West and was acknowledged by 
an imperial decree, which declared the power of the Bishop 



THE CHURCH IN MEDIAEVAL CIVILIZATION. 73 

of Rome supreme and ordered all bishops of the West to re- 
ceive as law whatever the Bishop of Rome sanctioned. The 
emphatic assertion of the supremacy of the Roman bishop 
made by Leo the Great, in his protest against the action of the 
Council of Chalcedon in raising the Bishop of Constantinople 
to equal ecclesiastical honor with the Bishop of Rome, was 
another step towards making Rome the sole head of the 
Church. 

The position of the popes was greatly strengthened by the 
conversion of the barbarians. This work of christianizing 
the German tribes was carried on largely by agents of the popes, 
and the new converts, therefore, became firm supporters of 
the papal power. The early conversion of the Franks to the 
orthodox faith brought about an alliance between the Frankish 
king and the Church, which proved a strong factor in the con- 
quest and conversion of the heretic Visigoths and Burgundians. 
Milman considers the conversion of the Franks "the most 
important event, in its remote as well as its immediate con- 
sequences, in European history." 

At the end of the sixth century, Christianity was introduced 
into the southern part of England by the preaching of Augus- 
tine and his companion monks, but the supremacy of the Roman 
Church was established only after a bitter conflict with the 
Irish monks who had kept alive the Christian faith in the dark 
days of the heathen conquest and had converted to their be- 
hef and practice the northern and western regions of Britain. 
The final victory of the Roman Church estabhshed in England 



74 THE CHURCH IN MEDIAEVAL CIVILIZATION. 

the religious customs and ceremonies sanctioned by the rest of 
Christendom and made the Enghsh Christians loyal supporters 
of the pope. The English monks with great missionary zeal 
began to go over to the Continent to labor for the progress 
of the Church. Although they had accepted the faith, the 
Germans had no church organization and Christianity was 
rapidly losing ground among them. The work of reorganiz- 
ing the German Church and restoring the faith was carried on 
by Boniface, "the apostle of the Germans," who was com- 
manded by the pope to " Christianize and Romanize all the 
Germans of central Europe." In all his work of reconstruction 
he emphasized the authority of the pope and made the German 
Church dependent on Rome. In this way the doctrine of papal 
supremacy was spread throughout Europe and the movement 
undertaken for the purpose of preaching the gospel to all na- 
tions has fittingly been called "the Roman Catholic conquest 
of the West." 

The function of the papacy was, in reality, threefold. It 
was the bishopric of Rome, the head of the whole Latin Church,, 
and the ruler of "the States of the Church." This temporal 
sovereignty had its territorial basis in the grants of land made 
to the popes by the earlier Carolingians and in the recognition 
of this ownership by later rulers. 

The relations of the papal power to the Empire were a sub- 
ject of perpetual controversy. The imperial view was that 
as the. emperor was the successor of the older rulers to whom 
the popes had always been subject, he had the inherited right 



THE CHURCH IN MEDIAEVAL CIVILIZATION. 75 

to control the pope. The papal theory, on the other hand, 
claimed that, as the Empire owed its existence to the corona- 
tion by the pope, the pope had the right to dictate to the em- 
peror, because the spiritual should always control the temporal. 
Charlemagne had assumed direction of the affairs of the Church, 
but under his successors the right of the pope to confer the 
imperial crown steadily gained recognition. The Donation of 
Constantine and the False Decretals, although by the fifteenth 
century generally acknowledged as forgeries, at the time of 
their appearance contributed much towards establishing the 
supreme authority of the papacy. Supported by these docu- 
ments, the popes made use of the opportunity which the falling 
Carolingian government afforded them, and consequently 
the ninth century, when the Frankish Empire was steadily 
growing weaker, is marked in the history of the Church by a 
rapid growth of power. With the extension of Feudalism and 
the lack of centralization in government there cam.e also a 
decline in the temporal power of the papacy. The office was 
coveted by the great families of Rome, and factional strife and 
intrigue were common among the nobles to secure the prize. 
Under such conditions the papacy lost its universal character 
and became a purely local power, reaching the 'lowest point 
of its degradation and corruption." The revival of the Holy 
Roman Empire by Otto the Great in 962 A. D. was the be- 
ginning of reform. Otto and his immediate successors strove 
to estabHsh a world empire with the papacy as a strong ally 
of the emperors. Reforming popes were appointed, and once 



76 THE CHURCH IN MEDIAEVAL CIVILIZATION. 

more the papacy was brought under the control of the Empire. 
But this imperial policy of the Saxon family in Italy allowed 
the feudal barons of Germany to strengthen themselves and 
thus weakened the royal power and made possible the ultimate 
triumph of the pope. The attempt to control the pope and 
Itahan affairs proved too difficult. Frequent journeys had to 
be taken to Rome to depose a hostile pope or protect a loyal one, 
and the absence of the emperor from Germany gave the re- 
bellious nobles every chance to revolt. As soon, however, as 
the imperial control over the papacy was lessened, there was 
a relapse into the former corrupt conditions. 

In the reign of Henry III, the second of the Franconian 
Emperors, there were three rival popes, each claiming his 
exclusive right to rule. Henry deposed all three and appointed 
a German pope in their place, the first of a series of German 
popes under whom the papacy took on a more international 
character and the ideas of the Cluny reformers became a strong 
influence in the control of affairs. This reform movement 
had started from the monastery of Cluny as a reformation of 
the monastic life, but it included ideas of a wider reformation 
throughout the Church. The three points which the reformers 
struggled to enforce were ''the independence of the Church 
from all outside control in the election of the pope, the celibacy 
of the clergy, and the abolition of simony or the purchase of 
ecclesiastical preferment." Each of these demands was of 
the greatest value towards securing the universal sovereignty 
of the Church. The marriage of the clergy tended to alienate 



THE CHURCH IN MEDIAEVAL CIVILIZATION. 77 

the lands of the Church and to reduce her income, for if the 
clergy were allowed to marry and bequeath their property to 
their children it would soon be dispersed. Hence financial 
and political, as well as rehgious, reasons demanded ceHbacy. 
The suppression of simony (so called from the story of Simon 
Magus in the eighth chapter of the Acts) was m€ant to do 
away with all buying and selling of church offices and to make 
impossible the appointment to positions in the Church by 
kings or princes. The granting of fiefs to churchmen had 
made the bishops and abbots chosen by the feudal lords, and 
it was necessary for the independence of the Church that the 
temporal rulers should have no control in the election of ecclesi- 
astical officials. During his hfe Henry III controlled the 
election of the popes, but soon after his death an attempt was 
made to free the papacy from imperial control. A decree of 
the year 1059 placed the election of the head of the Church in 
the hands of the College of Cardinals, the pope's own clerical 
council. The real triumph of the reform movement and the 
complete centralization of ecclesiastical power were due to 
Gregory Vn, who became pope in 1073. Gregory's policy of 
government rested on the idea that "the Church is the kingdom 
of God and the pope who is at its head has absolute authority 
over all the world." In carrying out this policy he became 
involved in a long and bitter conffict with the emperor over 
the question of lay investiture, the appointment of bishops 
by temporal rulers. The most dramatic incident in the long 
struggle was the journey of the emperor to Canossa and his 



78 THE CHURCH IN MEDIAEVAL CIVILIZATION. 

humiliation before the pope. At last a compromise was reached 
in the Concordat of Worms, by which the emperor gave up 
investiture ''with the ring and the staff," provided that the 
elections should take place in his presence or that of his repre- 
sentatives and that investiture with all imperial rights should 
still be under his control. Thus, in the wider aspect of the case, 
the victory of the Church was complete and the independence 
of the papacy was assured. 

The papal power greatly enlarged its sphere and in the 
thirteenth century rose to its highest point under Innocent III, 
the most powerful pope of history. He pushed to the extreme 
the idea of the supremacy of the pope over all rulers and held 
that all the states of the West must be under the control of the 
papacy. He compelled the kings of France, England, and 
Germany to obey him and exercised an almost imperial power. 
But he made politics the chief interest of the Church, and, 
therefore, the papacy lost in spiritual power. Because it had 
placed temporal power above its religious interests, the victory 
of the papacy over the Empire was the beginning of its fall. 
Christendom still regarded Rome as its religious centre, but the 
nations no longer accepted the pope as their political head. 

At the height of its power, the Mediaeval Church was a 
strongly centralized monarchy, with the pope as its all-powerful 
head. But it maintained its power not only by its great or- 
ganization but by its teachings and sacraments and by the 
exalted position of the clergy. The power of the clergy de- 
pended upon the special sanctification received through their 



THE CHURCH IN MEDIAEVAL CIVILIZATION. 79 

ordination, the right to perform the seven sacraments, and the 
prerogatives of excommunication and interdict. Their in- 
fluence was further increased by the fact that they alone were 
educated. A sharp distinction was made between the secular 
clergy, the resident preachers and pastors under the bishops, 
who lived in the world and the regular clergy, who Hved under 
a regula, or rule, such as those of the different monastic orders. 
The great impulse to the monastic spirit of the West was given 
by St. Benedict in the sixth century. The constitution which 
he drew up for the monastery of Monte Cassino was accepted 
by the other monasteries and gradually became the rule for 
all the western monks. Every candidate for admission to the 
monastery had to pass through a period of probation before 
taking the final solemn vow, in which he pledged himself to 
''poverty, chastity, and obedience." In addition to prayer 
and meditation, work at manual occupations was required 
from the monks. Those who were physically strong and able 
cultivated the lands about the monasteries, while others copied 
manuscripts or taught in the monastery schools. In this way 
the influence of the monks upon civilization was very great. 
Waste lands were reclaimed, better methods of agriculture 
introduced, and labor again regarded as honorable. The 
monasteries served as places of entertainment for travellers 
and furnished retreats for scholars, while the copying of books 
preserved to later generations a great part of Latin literature. 
As the Hfe in the monasteries became more worldly a great 
spirit of reform in the religious life spread over Europe from 



8o THE CHURCH IN MEDIAEVAL CIVILIZATION. 

the monastery of Cluny. New houses were founded by the 
monks of Cluny and older foundations received from them a 
reformatory impulse, so that the ''Congregation of Cluny" 
spread during the tenth century through all the countries of 
Europe. But as Cluny began to fall into luxury and worldh- 
ness, new orders were formed and attempts were made to en- 
force again the original Benedictine rule and to maintain 
greater severity in disciphne. The history of mediaeval monas- 
ticism is one of continually repeated reforms, and again in the 
thirteenth century a new impulse was needed to revive the 
decHning energy of the ascetic spirit. In the foundation of 
the Mendicant Orders a new element was introduced and an 
effort made to preserve the sanctity of the monastic character 
and at the same time bring the monk into closer relations with 
the Hfe about him. The first movements towards this end 
were made by St. Francis of Assisi and St. Dominic. Where 
the old monasticism had been largely selfish and aimed to se- 
cure personal holiness, the spirit of the new was characterized 
by missionary zeal. The Dominicans aimed to restore by 
preaching the purity of the faith which had been endangered by 
heresies. The Franciscans strove to deepen the sense of 
rehgious fervor, "desiring to follow the Hfe and the poverty 
of Jesus Christ, persevering therein until the end." In the 
thirteenth century there was no agency more active for good 
than the Mendicant Orders, although eventually they fell vic- 
tims to the same temptations that had ruined the earher or- 
ders. 



THE CHURCH IN MEDIAEVAL CIVILIZATION. 8 1 

With the growth of the Church in riches and power the 
buildings and ceremonies increased in splendor. The Ro- 
manesque churches of the eleventh and twelfth centuries and 
the later Gothic cathedrals with their wealth of beauty in 
stained glass and sculpture are the outward indications of the 
wealth and importance of the Mediaeval Church, ''The great 
influence of the Church in the Middle Ages was due to the ab- 
sence of strong rulers who could count upon the support of a 
large body of loyal subjects." During the period of feudal 
anarchy the Church strove to maintain order, administer jus- 
tice, protect the weak, and encourage learning. In reality, it 
dominated every department of life and controlled all human 
interests. 



CHAPTER VI. 

The Crusades. 

The crusading idea is but another development of that 
peculiarly Mediaeval characteristic of seeking the ideal without 
regard to practical considerations, and the great expeditions in 
which it found expression are among the most romantic and 
picturesque events of the Middle Ages. "The occasion of 
the Crusades was Mohammedanism." Through the conquests 
of Mohammed and his successors, Mohammedan civilization 
had spread over large parts of Asia, northern Africa, and 
southwestern Europe, and had made rapid advancement in 
commerce, manufactures, science, and art. Under Arabian 
rule the Mohammedan world was tolerant, and conflicting 
interests between Mohammedans and Christians were com- 
mercial rather than religious. But with the rise of the Seljuk 
Turks and their capture of Jerusalem, Mohammedanism 
became intolerant and aggressive. Christian pilgrims to the 
holy places were treated with cruelty and suffered hardships 
and indignities. The Crusades were the protest of Christian 
Europe against Mohammedan control of the sacred places of 
the Christian faith. For more than two hundred years in- 
dividual pilgrims and groups of crusaders, wearing the sign of 



THE CRUSADES. 83 

the cross, were constantly undergoing starvation, slavery, 
disease, and death in their efforts to reach the Holy Land. 
During this time eight great Crusades, as historians usually 
reckon them, took place, besides the many smaller expeditions. 
The first four of these were great European movements and 
were shared in by many nations. 

The appeal of the Eastern Emperor to the pope for aid against 
the Turks and the preaching of the pope at the Council of 
Clermont in 1095 g^'Ve the impulse to the First Crusade. 
The pope urged knights and foot soldiers to turn to the reHef 
of their fellow Christians in the East and to wrest the holy 
sepulchre from the wicked race of the Turks, and thousands 
responded to his call. The overwhelming enthusiasm among 
all classes was due to many motives. The devout were aroused 
by faith and rehgious zeal, the desire to free the Holy Land 
from the control of the infidel. The adventurous longed for 
opportunities for war and military exploits, while others were 
led to join the expeditions to the East by the hope of political 
or commercial gain. The undertaking involved hardships 
and discomfort, but was rendered popular by the promise that 
the pilgrimage should serve as a penance for sin and that the 
crusader's family and property should receive the protection 
of the Church. The first crusade was composed almost 
wholly of Frenchmen and Normans. The French were the 
oldest and most securely Christianized people of the West and 
were loyal supporters of the pope, and, therefore, became the 
natural leaders of the crusade. A year before the departure 



84 THE CRUSADES. 

of the armies, great numbers of pilgrims, led by Peter the Her- 
mit, started on their journey to the Holy Land. With reckless 
courage and fanatic devotion they pressed on towards the 
East, masses of ill-organized, undisciplined men, who believed 
that the Lord would care for them during the long journey 
and give them a prompt victory over the infidel. But they 
suffered untold hardships and many perished from hunger or 
by the sword of the Turks. 

The armies were led by great nobles and princes. There 
was, however, no real central leadership. Each feudal lord 
was accompanied by his own followers, and ''the only principle 
of union," as Emerton says, ''was the voluntary subordination 
of the lesser under the greater for purely practical purposes, 
a subordination which shifted as chance or profit might dic- 
tate." They marched overland to Constantinople, forced 
their way through Asia Minor, and after a long siege captured 
Antioch from the Turks. Finally, in 1099, they took Jerusa- 
lem and organized their conquests into a feudal state, the king- 
dom of Jerusalem, with Godfrey of Bouillon, one of the most 
able and unselfish of the leaders, as its king. Godfrey took 
the modest title of "Defender of the Holy Sepulchre," and 
was never crowned king. The kingdom of Jerusalem was one 
of a group of four independent principalities into which the 
conquered territory was organized. The spirit of European 
life was opposed to centralization and the crusaders used the 
same principle of political and social organization that they 
had at home. By this very lack of centralization the strength 



THE CRUSADES. S$ 

and permanence of their conquests were made insecure. Many 
of the adventurers returned to their homes and the fortunes 
of the new states were left in the hands of a few princes. As 
these eastern lands began to attract settlers, a constant supply 
of new fighting material from the west helped greatly in the 
defense and development of the country. 

One of the immediate results of this crusading activity was 
the foundation of the three great Military Orders, which com- 
bined the two dominant ideals of the Middle Ages, the monk 
and the knight. The Hospitalers grew out of an association 
for providing hospital service for the sick and wounded pil- 
grims. Property was acquired for the support of the work, 
and in time the order built and controlled many fortified 
monasteries. The Templars, or "poor soldiers of the Tem- 
ple," so called because they had been assigned quarters on 
the site of Solomon's temple, were banded together for the 
defense of the pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem. The third 
order, that of the Teutonic knights, originated in the hospital- 
ity of a German merchant in Jerusalem towards his own 
countrymen who needed assistance. But it soon passed beyond 
these national limits and came, like the Templars, to be a 
purely mihtary body with the duty of defending the holy 
places. These military orders proved the chief rehance of 
the Christian kingdoms of the East, but after the crusading 
period, the absence of any real motive for service and the ac- 
quisition of wealth brought about their downfall. 

Fifty years after the first crusade, the news that Edessa, an 



86 THE CRUSADES. 

important outpost of the Christian kingdom, had fallen into 
the hands of the Turks roused aU Europe to a second crusade. 
It was the time of St. Bernard, whose eloquence induced many 
volunteers to take the cross. "The Christian who slays the 
unbeKever in the Holy War is sure of his reward, the more 
sure if he himself be slain," was the sum of his urgent appeal. 
The kings of France and Germany were readily persuaded, 
and many less distinguished nobles followed their example. 
But lack of union between the two armies and a misunder- 
standing of the real condition of affairs made the undertaking 
a failure, and from a military point of view it accomplished 
nothing. 

The capture of Jerusalem in 1187 by Saladin led to the 
most briUiant of all the military expeditions to the Holy Land. 
The greatest rulers of Europe — Frederick Barbarossa, Philip 
II of France, and Richard ''the Lion-hearted" of England — 
convinced that the highest duty of the Christian king was to 
lead his vassals to the holy war, took the lead of the enterprise. 
In spite of the romance that centres about this expedition and 
the knightly adventures and chivalrous exploits of Richard, 
failure must be written after this crusade also. 

The enthusiasm which produced the Crusades was slowly 
waning when it was roused again by the exhortations of Pope 
Innocent III, who appealed to the princes of Europe to recon- 
quer the Holy Land for the Church. The crusaders were 
diverted from their intention of striking at the Mohammedan 
power in Egypt by the Venetians. They turned their arms 



THE CRUSADES. 87 

against Constantinople and established there the so-called 
Latin Empire of the East, which maintained its existence for 
about half a century. This expedition shov/s how completely 
the original spirit of the crusading movement had become 
influenced by purely practical and commercial considerations. 
The Venetians were the gainers by this conquest, and the pow- 
er which they obtained in the eastern Mediterranean lasted 
for centuries. 

There is no more pathetic story in all history than that of 
the children's crusade. The preacher, a boy about twelve 
years old, claimed that he was called of God to lead a crusade 
to the Holy Sepulchre, and that victory which had been with- 
held from the high and mighty of the earth should be given to 
the children. The children became wild with excitement, 
and thousands flocked to the gathering places. After marches 
of hardship and exposure, they reached the coast, where they 
expected God would open a way for them through the sea as 
he had for the Children of Israel. In their disappointment, 
many returned home, but others sailed away to shipwreck and 
slavery. 

The later crusades lacked the general character of the earher 
ones and were the expeditions of single nations. The central 
figures were Emperor Frederic II of Germany and St. Louis 
of France. Frederic was a man much in advance of his age, 
and his crusading policy was directed tow^ards the recovery 
of Jerusalem by negotiations rather than by fighting. He 
succeeded in restoring for a short time the kingdom of Jerusa- 



88 THE CRUSADES. 

lem. St. Louis, on the other hand, was thoroughly devoted 
to the mediaeval ideals, and his two expeditions are character- 
ized by the high Christian motives of the early Crusaders. 

The crusading zeal gradually declined, and by the opening 
of the fourteenth century the people of Europe had lost faith 
in the movement. The immense loss of hfe and property in 
the East had availed nothing, and as the life at home opened 
wider fields of activity there was little energy to be spent in 
such remote enterprises. The failure of the Crusades may be 
set down to the lack of organization in the expeditions and the 
quarrels and personal ambitions of the leaders. The direct 
and indirect effects of the Crusades on Europe were many and 
important, yet we must remember that numerous other factors 
were of equal importance in changing the institutions and 
customs of Europe. The most definite and practical result 
was the development of commerce. The importation from the 
East of new natural products and manufactures and the ex- 
tension of trade routes to the northern cites of France and 
Germany increased inla.nd commerce. ''Money became a 
world power," says one historian, "as a result of the crusades 
and of the commerce which they had called into being." 
Banking methods were inaugurated and commercial activity 
still further increased. As a result, there followed the rapid 
growth of the cities and the rise of the mercantile class. The 
increased use of money destroyed the economic foundation of 
FeudaHsm. Barter was no longer necessary. The owner 
of land could obtain a money income from it and thus could 



THE CRUSADES. 89 

pay for the services required on the land, and, in like manner, 
those who had services to sell could exchange them for money. 
With the use of a fixed m.edium of exchange the feudal rela- 
tionship passed gradually out of use. So, too, the state, able 
to derive an income from regular taxation, became independent 
of feudal service in the formation and support of an army. 
With the economic foundation of FeudaHsm broken down, 
the poHtical influence also was undermined and the demands 
of the commercial classes for uniform government, combined 
with the natural ambitions of ruling sovereigns, brought about 
the fall of FeudaHsm. The narrow and local political methods 
of the feudal system gave place to more general and uniform 
legal regulations and a stronger government. 

But the most important influence from the Crusades was 
that in the world of thought. The general fund of knowledge 
was materially increased. Geographical knowledge was gained 
by the journeys into the East. Acquaintance was made with 
the animals and plants of strange countries, and botanical and 
zoological studies were stimulated. Contact with the Arabs 
brought also greater familiarity with medicine, chemistry, and 
mathematics. Thus in many ways the intellectual horizon 
was broadened and a strong influence was at work towards 
the great uprising of the human mind in the next century. 

The thirteenth century was the first great intellectual age 
since the days of Greece and Rome, and the founding of the 
universities was a direct and permanent contribution to the 
world's civilization. In literature, the Crusades furnished a 



90 



THE CRUSADES. 



vast amount of material to the imagination. The adventures 
of the crusader, his mihtary exploits, and eventful journeys to 
the East became the subjects for the mediaeval romances. 

The Crusades worked great changes and gave a powerful 
impetus to progress in all directions, but we must not forget 
that the beginnings of these changes go back to the ages that 
preceded. To quote the words of George Burton Adams, — 
*'We ma}^ say of the age of the crusades as of every great revo- 
lutionary age in history, that it is a time not so much of the 
creation of new forces as of the breaking forth in unusual and 
unrestrained action of forces which have been for a long time 
at work beneath the surface quietly and unobserved." 



CHAPTER VII. 

The Development of National States — France and 

England. 

Under the feudal system there were two great obstacles to 
the formation of any efi&cient national government, the geo- 
graphical subdivision of the country into numerous independent 
districts, and the subdivision of the general authority among 
the many local powers. The great economic changes which 
followed the expansion of commerce created a demand for 
established order and uniformity and worked towards national 
control. A national consciousness began to develop and to 
seek expression in government. These new governments 
arose first of all in France and England. 

In France one of the strongest feudal lords was the Count of 
Paris, who held extensive domains besides those he ruled as 
count. For a hundred years there was a constant struggle 
between this family and the family of Charlemagne, and the 
crown passed back and forth between the two. The Counts 
of Paris were rich and able men while the later Carolingians 
were poor and unfortunate, so that finally the Counts of Paris 
secured definite possession of the throne and Hugh Capet was 
elected king. The difficulty, however, lay not in securing 



92 THE DEVELOPMENT OF FRANCE AND ENGLAND. 

but in establishing the royal power. Progress towards creating 
a real kingdom was necessarily slow. The kings must, in the 
first place, bring the territory of France under their direct rule 
and recover it from the possession of the great barons. The 
territory of the Dukes of France, the inherited possessions of 
the early Capetian kings, was a small district north of the 
Seine. All about this narrow domain were the feudal strong- 
holds of great nobles, and the king, with little more than the 
dignity of his title, could do nothing against the powerful, lords 
who theoretically owed him homage. The "great fiefs" of 
Normandy, Brittany, Flanders, Burgundy, and Aquitaine 
were strong independent states and their rulers by conquest, 
marriage, or purchase were constantly increasing their posses- 
sions. It will be seen that the position of the early Capetian 
kings was very complicated. They were feudal lords of their 
own domains, they were suzerains of the great feudal princes 
and could require homage and feudal service from them, but 
above all they were crowned and consecrated by the Church 
as kings and were recognized as the protectors of the Church 
and the oppressed. Hence they were in the estimate of the 
people endowed with higher authority than the great vassals. 
These vassals, on the other hand, considered the king merely 
their feudal lord and did not recognize his royal prerogatives. 
It was only by making his right of kingship superior to that of 
feudal sovereignty that the king could hope to secure control 
over the territory of France. A fortunate circumstance in the 
struggle was the direct succession, by the established principle 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF FRANCE AND ENGLAND. 93 

of primogeniture, of a long line of Capetian kings for over 
three hundred years. 

Philip Augustus (i 180-1223) made the duchy of France into 
a real kingdom and devoted his life to the one object of in- 
creasing the royal power at the expense of the great feudal 
lords. At his accession to the throne he found many of the 
fiefs of western France in the hands of the king of England, who 
had inherited through his mother Normandy and Brittany, 
through his father the counties of Maine and Anjou, and by 
his marriage had come into possession of the greater part of 
southern France, Guienne, Poitou, and Gascony. More than 
half the territory in which Philip was recognized as king was, 
therefore, under the rule of the Enghsh king. Phihp waged 
incessant war upon the Plantagenets, and but for his shrewd- 
ness in taking advantage of the constant family quarrels among 
Henry's sons, to whom the government of the French posses- 
sions was delegated, the royal house of France would certainly 
have been annihilated. Finally, in the reign of John of Eng- 
land, Philip, on the plea that John had refused to do homage 
for his continental possessions, seized the greater part of the 
Plantagenet lands, and the Enghsh kings lost all their French 
territory except Guienne. The Capetian domain was, there- 
fore, the chief in wealth and extent of all the feudal estates of 
France. For the first time in the history of France the king 
was more powerful than any of his barons and was king in 
fact as well as in name. Phihp strengthened the royal power 
and instituted a better administration of royal affairs by the 



94 THE DEVELOPMENT OF FRANCE AND ENGLAND. 

appointment of baillis, officers who represented the royal 
authority in the districts to which they were sent and cared for 
the administration of justice and the financial interests of the 
locality. The consolidation of the kingdom was somewhat 
retarded by the pohcy of Philip's son in assigning fiefs to his 
younger sons. It caused constant strife among the members 
of the royal family and tended to alienate provinces from the 
crown, when every thing was needed to consolidate the royal 
authority. 

The reign of Louis IX (St. Louis) was another period of 
territorial accession and of institutional reform. After the 
king had put down a revolt of the barons of central France in 
aUiance with the king of England, a definite settlement of the 
question of the English possessions was made and the king of 
England gave up all claim to the territory that had been seized 
by Philip Augustus. An important change in the government 
was the organization of the council of great lords, which from 
very early times had assembled to advise the king. It was now 
divided into three groups, first, the king's council to aid in 
carrying on the general affairs of the realm; second, a financial 
body to manage the revenue; and third, the parlement, a su- 
preme court to which appeals from the feudal courts were 
made. Louis further regulated the office of bailli and tried to 
secure honest and efficient service. The king's power was 
also advanced by a decree that royal coins should be used 
in the domain of the king and should be equal to local coin 
in all parts of the country. 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF FRANCE AND ENGLAND. 95 

Absolutism is very likely to follow centralization, and so in 
the beginning of the fourteenth century the king began to bring 
the whole government into his own hands and to disregard the 
privileges of the lords and the clergy. This was largely due 
to the influence of his advisers, lawyers who based their theories 
of kingly power on the absolute power of the Roman Emperors. 
The chief work of the reign of Philip the Fair, however, was to 
start a system of national taxation and to create the Estates 
General. A great council of the realm was summoned by the 
king, with the hope of gaining the support of the nation in his 
quarrel with the pope, and in this council were included repre- 
sentatives of the towns as well as of the nobles and clergy. It 
was, therefore, the beginning of a national legislature. But 
as the assembly was at first only an advisory body and the 
kings kept it under strict control, calling it together only when 
they needed it for their own purposes, it had Httle influence 
against the growth of absolutism. 

From the thirteenth century, therefore, dates the organiza- 
tion of the modern French nation. The king was in all re- 
spects a modern king, having the allegiance of the whole terri- 
tory over which his title extended. Increase of territory and 
the creation of new institutions of government as the rule of 
the kings extended over more and more of France had resulted 
in the formation of a truly national government. The geo- 
graphical unity of the country was not complete, and the un- 
settled boundary between French territory and the French 
possessions of the Enghsh king became the cause of the long 
and disastrous Hundred Years' war. 



96 THE DEVELOPMENT OF FRANCE AND ENGLAND. 

The struggle between the countries was brought on by the 
claims of Edward III, through his mother, to the French crown. 
The male line of the Capetians was extinct, and according to 
the Salic law, which excluded a woman or her heirs from the 
throne, the crown had passed on to a cousin of the late king. 
Edward, in reality, went to war because France was encroach- 
ing upon Guienne and aiding Scotland, and because he was 
encouraged by the Flemish towns. Notwithstanding his bril- 
liant victories of Crecy and Poitiers and the successful seizure 
of Calais, Edward found the conquest of France impossible 
and finally signed a treaty renouncing his pretensions to the 
French crown and to the Plantagenet provinces north of the 
Loire, and receiving in return full sovereignty of Guienne. 
Succeeding kings, however, did not respect the treaty, and the 
English possessions dwindled down to Calais and a strip of 
land to the south of Bordeaux. Some fifty years later the 
wretched conditions in France encouraged Henry V of England 
to renew the war. His sole aim was to make himself and his 
house famous by deeds of valor. After the brilliant victory at 
Agincourt and continued English successes, the French cause 
was saved by the patriotism and enthusiasm of Joan of Arc. 
The EngHsh were driven from France and all their French 
possessions except Calais passed into the hands of the French 
king. This territorial gain helped greatly towards the geo- 
graphical unity of France. Burgundy, Provence, and Brittany, 
the three great fiefs remaining independent, were all annexed 
before the close of the fifteenth century. In England as well 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF FRANCE AND ENGLAND. 97 

as France the war had developed a strong national feeHng and 
strengthened the royal government. The establishment of a 
standing army had further increased the king's power in 
France and at the close of the war the absolute monarchy was 
complete. 

The early history of England is the history of the union of 
the several kingdoms of the Angles and Saxons, and of the 
conflicts with the Danish invaders, who were defeated by Alfred 
the Great but continued their invasions and in the eleventh cen- 
tury succeeded in getting the kingship and holding it for a few 
years. The power of the Saxon kings was strongly estabhshed, 
but was limited by the advice of the Council of bishops and no- 
bles, the Witenagemot, which assisted them in legislation and 
administration. The kingdom was divided into shires, and 
groups of these had been placed under the government of earls, 
thus increasing the power of landed proprietors and raising 
rivals to the king's power, but the popular assemblies in the 
shires and " hundreds " kept alive the practice of self-govern- 
ment and acted as a check on the power of the lords. 

Feudal institutions, however, were really introduced into 
England by the Norman conquest of 1066. WiUiam's poHcy 
of governing was directed towards estabHshing the supremacy 
of the crown without interfering with Enghsh customs. The 
lands of those who had opposed him in battle were confiscated 
and given to his followers, while those who had refused to join 
him were permitted to retain their lands upon condition of 
receiving them from the king as vassals. He appointed 
7 



95 THE DEVELOPMENT OF FRANCE AND ENGLAND. 

governors of the shires, but controlled them by means of royal 
officers. He required every landowner in England to take an 
oath of fidelity directly to him. Thus he secured the support 
of the small holders and prevented combinations against him. 
Homage was expected from bishops as well as from lay vassals, 
and WilHam refused to permit the pope to interfere in English 
affairs without his consent. Thus the monarchy established 
by the Norman conquest was a strong and powerful one, but 
instead of growing more and more absolute, as was the case in 
France, the changes in government tended to place greater 
restriction upon the kingly power. 

During a war between rival claimants for the crown, in the 
middle of the twelfth century, the nobles took advantage of the 
confusion and disorder to build strong castles and make them- 
selves practically independent rulers. When Henry II was 
formally recognized as the king, he promptly destroyed these 
fortresses and even deprived some of the nobles of their titles. 
His one idea was to unify the government, and all his reforms 
were intended to break down the authority of the barons. 
His reforms in the judicial system were a direct contribution 
to a centralized form of government. He directed his judges 
to make regular circuits throughout the country to try cases 
under local conditions in order that he might keep in his own 
control the right to judge disputes among his subjects and pre- 
vent private warfare. The establishment of the Court of the 
King's Bench, which tried all other cases under the king's 
jurisdiction, the beginning of the grand jury system, and the 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF FRANCE AND ENGLAND. 99 

recognition of trial by jury as a settled law of the land, all date 
from the reign of Henry II. 

Probably the most powerful factor in the development of 
modern England was the granting of the Great Charter. The 
despotism of King John and his neglect to recognize the re- 
strictions upon the royal power, which had been honored by 
earlier kings, aroused great discontent, and in 1215 the barons 
forced the king to swear to observe the rights of the nation by 
signing the charter which they had written out. This famous 
document secured the rights of all classes of the realm. Many 
of its provisions were of a temporary nature, but others were of 
permanent value. The five fundamental principles of Anglo- 
Saxon liberty were guaranteed — ''The right to trial by jury, 
the principle of habeas corpus, the illegahty of taxes not con- 
sented to by the nation's representatives, fixed places of meeting 
for courts of common pleas, and the principle that no person 
shall be deprived of Hfe, liberty, or property without due process 
of law." "The Great Charter," says Stubbs, "is the first 
great pubhc act of the nation after it has realized its own iden- 
tity, the consummation of the work for which unconsciously 
kings, prelates, and lawyers have been laboring for a century. 
It is in one view the summing up of a period of national life, 
in another the starting point of a new period not less eventful 
than that which it closes." Although succeeding kings often 
tried to evade its provisions and to rule absolutely, the Charter 
remained a permanent barrier against despotism. 

CentraHzation and recognition of popular rights had thus 

LOFfe 



lOO THE DEVELOPMENT OF FRANCE AND ENGLAND. 

been secured. The third important element of a truly national 
government, representation of the people, soon followed. The 
same century saw the beginning of the English ParHament. 
In 1265, through the influence of Simon de Montfort, who 
championed the united forces of the nobles and the towns 
against the arbitrary rule of the king, the commons were 
present at a meeting of the council of the king, or as it had come 
to be called, the ParUament. Two knights from each county, 
or shire, and two citizens from each of the more important 
towns were summoned to attend and take part in the discus- 
sion. As the townspeople were becoming rich and it was 
desirable to have them present to make grants of money, they 
were summoned by Edward I to the Model Parliament of 1295. 
After that time a representative Parliament became a part of 
the national government and no statute could be legally passed 
without its consent. From the reign of Edward I we are, to 
quote the words of Green, ''face to face with modern England. 
Kings, Lords, Commons, the courts of justice, the relations of 
Church and State, in a great measure the framework of so- 
ciety itself, have all taken the shape which they still essentially 
retain." 

In England, therefore, the struggle between kings and nobles 
produced a constitutional monarchy under which popular 
rights and Hberties developed. In France, on the contrary, 
the powers of the crown grew, but without gain to the people 
except in greater security and better government. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

The Trade Guilds and the Growth of Town Life. 

The two great forces which divided the inheritance of 
FeudaHsm were the centraUzed monarchies and the rich, 
industrious people of the towns. The barbarian invasions 
and the growth of FeudaHsm had destroyed the government 
of the old cities and brought them into the hands of bishops or 
nobles. Many towns had grown up about the monasteries 
and were under ecclesiastical protection, while others originated 
on the feudal estates to offer the country people a protection 
within a walled enclosure in times of violence and danger. 
But in both cases there was no right of government for the town. 
Everything was controlled by the ruHng lord, who exercised 
his authority through his agents. The revival of industry 
and commerce afforded opportunity for the growth of municipal 
liberty. The rich merchants of the towns had money to carry 
on a struggle against the lords, and consequently opposed the 
unfair taxation put upon them and began to aim at self-govern- 
ment. Many obtained charters from the feudal lords by suc- 
cessful war or by purchase. As the nobles were always in 
need of money, the common way of securing the charter was 
by purchase and in England the towns gained their privileges 



I02 THE TRADE GUILDS AND TOWN LIFE. 

in this way. In Germany, the cities were able to secure re- 
lief from arbitrary taxation, but not until the thirteenth cen- 
tury, when the imperial power was greatly weakened, did 
they gain political independence. In France, the towns in the 
west and south gained self-government, but in the central part 
the king was able to check their growth and to keep them 
in partial dependence. Towns of this class often received 
charters granting commercial privileges, but were still ruled 
by the officers sent by the king. 

The town charters were written contracts between the lord 
and the commune and served as the town constitutions. In 
some towns all the inhabitants received political rights, in 
others only members of certain guilds, while in others suffrage 
depended on property-owning. Hence in many cases an aris- 
tocratic or even oligarchic character was given to the govern- 
ment and the commons had little voice in the management of 
affairs. 

The town which had received a charter was treated exactly 
as an individual in the feudal system. It owed regular feudal 
dues to its lord and might, in turn, become a feudal lord with 
vassals of its own. The charter, however, usually fixed the 
amount of feudal dues which the lord might demand at a defi- 
nite sum yearly. 

Each town was an independent centre of civic life and re- 
sponsible for its internal affairs. The organization differed 
in different places and the chief officials had different names. 
In some places they were called consuls, in others a mayor and 



THE TRADE GUILDS AND TOWN LIFE. 1 03 

jurati, ''men under oath to serve the commune in the best way 
possible," were at the head of affairs. These ofl&cials exer- 
cised legislative and executive power and, with some limita- 
tions, judicial power also. The control of financial affairs 
was in their hands. Large sums of money had to be raised 
to meet the expenses of the government and to pay the sums 
due for privileges secured in the charters. The revenue was 
raised by taxation, which "was assessed on the various mer- 
cantile and industrial companies according to their standing 
and sometimes levied on the inhabitants by a house rate." 
The outward signs of a commune were the possession of a 
corporate seal and a belfry, which served as watch tower and 
sounded its warning bell upon the approach of the enemy. 
In the fourteenth century town halls began to be built to serve 
as the centres of communal life. 

The mediaeval towns were also the centres of industrial or- 
ganization. The development of commerce naturally stimu- 
lated manufacturing, and the growth of the towns in size and 
population created greater demands for the products of labor. 
As soon as several men in a town were engaged in the same 
craft, local organization of that trade followed. These craft 
guilds made the regulations for carrying on their own trades. 
One of the earhest guilds was that of the candle makers in 
Paris. The number of trades differed in different towns, but 
the guilds were similar in their general character and all had 
the same object — to secure the highest efficiency of labor in 
the given trade. 



.104 THE TRADE GUILDS AND TOWN LIFE. 

This could be accomplished only by preventing a man from 
practicing a trade, if he had not been admitted to the corpora- 
tion, and by making provision for the technical training of the 
workmen. The members of the guild were divided into three 
classes, apprentices, journeymen, and masters. The appren- 
tice served a certain number of years in learning his trade. The 
simpler trades might be learned in three years, but a difficult 
craft, Hke the goldsmith's, required ten years. He received 
food and shelter from the master and was trained in his trade 
and also in the habits of good citizenship. He received no 
pay for his work but, on the contrary, often paid considerable 
money for his instruction. The journeyman had finished his 
apprenticeship and was entitled to receive wages, but he still 
had to work for a master and could not work directly for the 
public. The guild limited the number of apprentices that a 
master workman might employ in order that the journeymen 
might not be too numerous. The master was not merely an 
employer, but worked himself at the trade. Any journeyman 
who could save enough money and prove his qualifications 
might, in turn, become a master. The guilds regulated the 
quality of material, the standard of completed work, and the 
conditions under which work was to be carried on. Thus they 
secured great advantages for their own members but were 
monopolists in relation to outsiders. No one who did not 
conform to the laws of the guild was allowed to work at the 
trade and every effort was made to keep outsiders from learning 
any technical processes or trade secrets. Within the guild, 



THE TRADE GUILDS AND TOWN LIFE. I05 

the members were bound together by common interests and 
often by relationship, since sons usually followed the trades of 
their fathers. The governing principle was democratic, and 
the members made their own laws and administered the com- 
mon funds which came from the entrance fees of apprentices, 
the free gifts of members, and the fines imposed for breaking 
the rules. The funds were often used for benevolent purposes 
for the sick and needy. The carpenter's guild at Norwich 
promised "help to those fallen into poverty or mishap, if not 
brought about through folly or riotous living." 

The guilds form the mediaeval solution of the labor problem. 
They were based on the principle of co-operation rather than 
competition. Employers and employed were members of 
the same body, and capital and labor were united in the same 
persons. The guild, therefore, did not, Hke the modern trades- 
unions, have to support the interests of workmen against their 
capitaHst employers, but to protect and aid its members in the 
advancement of the trade in which master and workmen ahke 
took a just and honorable pride. 

The merchant guilds were unions of the merchants of a 
town, formed for securing special privileges of trade in other 
towns and countries. Merchants did not trade as individuals 
or as "citizens of a state which protected their interests abroad," 
but as members of the merchant guild of their town. These 
associations frequently had exclusive trading rights in the great 
commercial centres, and so membership in them gave the mer- 
chant his greatest opportunity for business. 



Io6 THE TRADE GUILDS AND TOWN LIEE. 

Among the great commercial centres were the Italian cities^ 
Genoa and Venice, which had extensive trade by sea. From 
them land routes led north to the cities on the Rhine and 
Danube and in the Rhone valley. The great northern market 
was Bruges, where the products of the south and east were 
exchanged for the goods of the north. Among its residents 
were merchants from nearly every part of the known world. 
Nuremberg, also, became important because it was on the 
line of trade from Italy north. In addition to these permanent 
centres of trade there were temporary centres where the great 
fairs were held at certain periods. During the season of the 
fairs merchants and traders from all over Europe hastened to 
these cities and purchasers came from all the neighboring 
country. Each fair, in turn, gave the merchant an added oppor- 
tunity for disposing of his goods. 

Some of the mediaeval restrictions on trade seem strange to 
our modern business sense. Wholesale trade, for example, 
was not looked upon with approval. Those who bought up 
a quantity of goods in order to sell at a higher rate were called 
''forestallers" and were not highly esteemed. Public opinion 
had much to do with the regulation of prices and it was con- 
sidered a dishonorable thing to sell any thing for more than a 
"just price," that is, one that merely covered the cost of ma- 
terial and labor. 

The dangers and difficulties which merchants encountered 
led the towns to form unions for mutual defense. Such a 
league was formed by the cities of the Rhine for the security 



THE TRADE GUILDS AND TOWN LIFE. I07 

of merchants trading along the river. But the most famous 
of these city leagues was that of the northern cities of Germany, 
called the Hanseatic league. The growth of the league was 
gradual, but by the thirteenth century it was fully organized. 
It represented a union of German merchants abroad and 
German towns at home for common defense, security of trafhc 
on land and sea, and the acquisition of trading privileges in 
foreign countries. At its greatest extent the league included 
over ninety cities of the Baltic and North sea regions. Lubeck 
was the capital, and the meeting place of the congress. Ware- 
houses were maintained in foreign cities, in London and even 
in remote Novgorod in Russia. During their flourishing period 
these cities are an excellent illustration of the success of "inter- 
municipal commerce." They were a great mercantile federa- 
tion, and at a time when trading was regulated by the interests 
of individual cities they inaugurated a general commercial 
policy. The league maintained itself until the fifteenth cen- 
tury as a powerful influence in northern Europe, but the rise 
of nationaHties which objected to the presence of ahen mer- 
chants in their midst and the general antagonism against the 
league as a vast monopoly caused its power to decline. Its 
final downfall did not, however, come until the seventeenth 
century. 



io8 



HISTORICAL OUTLINES. 



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HISTORICAL OUTLINES. Ill 

II. Important Events in Greek History. 

B. c. 
1500 — 1000. Mycenaean Age. Early colonization. 
1000 — 700. Epic Age. 

750 — 550. Era of great activity in colonization. 
753 — 650. Government of aristocracy in Athens. 

594. Reforms of Solon in the constitution. The 
government really a "timocracy." 
560 — 510. Tyranny of Pisistratus and his sons. 

550. Sparta at the head of the Peloponnesian league. 

508. Reforms of Cleisthenes in the Athenian consti- 
tution. The government a democracy. 
490 — 479. The period of the Persian Wars. 

490. Battle of Marathon. 

480. Battles of Thermopylae and Salamis. 

479. Battle of Plataea. 
478 — 454. Confederacy of Delos. 

462. Breaking of alliance between Athens and Sparta. 
461 — 431. Age of Pericles. 
456 — 447. Athenian Continental Federation. 

454. The Confederacy of Delos finally transformed 
into the Athenian Empire. 

445. Thirty years' truce between Athens and Sparta. 
431 — 404. Peloponnesian War. 

421. Peace of Nicias. 
415 — 413. Sicilian Expedition. 



112 HISTORICAL OUTLINES. 

405. Battle of ^gospotami. 

404 — 371. Spartan supremacy. 

387. Treaty of Antalcidas. 

371. Battle of Leuctra. 

371 — 362. Theban supremacy. 

362. Battle of Mantineia. 

359 — 336. Philip of Macedon. 

338. Battle of Chaeroneia. 

336 — 323. Alexander the Great. 

334. Battle on the Granicup 

333. Battle of Issus. 

331. Battle of Arbela. 

301. Battle of Ipsus: division of Alexander's Empire. 

III. Important Events in History of Rome. 

B. c. 

753(?) — 509. The regal period. 

509. The change from monarchy to republic. 

509 — 264. The period of the Italian wars and Roman con- 
quest of Italy. 

494. The institution of the plebeian tribunate. 

451 — 449. The Decemvirs ; the laws of the "Twelve tables." 

445. The Canuleian law. 

390. Sack of Rome by the Gauls. 

367. Licinian-Sextian laws. 

343 — 341. First Samnite war. 



HISTORICAL OUTLINES. 



113 



326 — 304. Second Samnite war. 
298 — 290. Third Samnite war. 

287. Hortensian law. 
281 — 272. War with Tarentum. 
264 — 133. Expansion of Rome outside of Italy. Growth 

of plutocracy. 
264 — 241. First Punic war. 
218 — 201. Second Punic war. 
216. Battle of Cannae. 
202. Battle of Zama. 
200 — 196. Second Macedonian war. 
197. Battle of Cynoscephalae. 
192 — 189. The Asiatic war. 

190. Battle of Magnesia. 
171 — 167. Third Macedonian war. 
168. Battle of Pydna. 
146. Destruction of Carthage and Corinth. 
133 — 27. Revolution from republic to empire. 
133. Agrarian law of Tiberius Gracchus. 
123. Tribuneship of Caius Gracchus. 
112 — 106. The Jugurthan war. The rise of Caius Marius. 
100. The political failure of Marius. 
90 — 88. The Social war. 
82 — 79. Dictatorship of Sulla. 
66 — 62. Conquests in the East by Pompey. 

60. First Triumvirate. 
58 — 50. Conquest of Gaul by Caesar. 



114 HISTORICAL OUTLINES. 

49 — 45. Civil war between Pompey and Caesar. 
44. Death of Caesar. 
43. Second Triumvirate. 
42. Battles of Philippi. 
31. Battle of Actium. 
27. End of the repubHc. 
27 — 41 A. D. Julian and Claudian Emperors. 
27 — 14 A. D. Augustus. 
14 — 37. Tiberius. 
37 — 41. Caligula. 
41 — 54. Claudius. 
54 — 68. Nero. 
68 — 69. MiHtary revolution. 

69 — 96. The Flavian Emperors. Vespasian, Titus, Do- 
mi tian. 
96 — 180. The five good Emperors. Limited monarchy. 
211 — 217. Caracalla. Universal suffrage throughout the 

Empire. 
284 — 305. Diocletian. 

313. Edict of Milan. 
324 — 337. Constantine sole Emperor. 
325. Council of Nicaea. 

395. Division of the Empire into Eastern and West- 
ern part. 
418. Settlement of Visigoths in Gaul. 
429. Vandal invasion of Africa. 



HISTORICAL OUTLINES. II5 

476. ''Fall of Western Empire" — reunion of the -East 
and West. 

493 — 553- Ostrogothic kingdom in Italy. 

481 — 511. Clovis — the founder of the Frankish kingdom. 

751. Pippin, king of the Franks. 

768. Charlemagne, king of the Franks. 

800. Charlemagne crowned Emperor of the Romans. 

IV. Important Events in the Empire and 
THE Church. 

843. Treaty of Verdun and partition of the Empire, 
911. End of Carolingian rule in Germany. 
918 — 1024. Saxon Emperors. 

962. Revival of the Holy Roman Empire by Otto 
the Great. 
1024 — 1 125. Franconian or Salian Emperors. 
1039 — 1056. Henry III. The mediaeval Empire at its highest 
point. 
1054. Final separation of Greek and Latin Churches. 
1056 — 1 106. Henry IV. 
1073 — 1085. Pontificate of Gregory VII. 

1077. Triumph of the pope over the emperor at Ca- 
nossa. 

1095. Council of Clermont. 

1096. First Crusade. 

1099. Capture of Jerusalem by the crusaders. 
1 1 22. Concordat of Worms. 



Il6 HISTORICAL OUTLINES. 

1 138 — 1268. Hohenstaufen Emperors. 

1 147 — 1 149. Second Crusade. 

1 1 52 — 1 190. Frederick Barbarossa. 

1 189 — 1 192. Third Crusade. 

1 1 98 — 1 2 16. Pontificate of Innocent III. 

1201 — 1204. Fourth Crusade. 

1 2 14 — 1250. Frederick II. 

1228. Crusade of Frederick II. 

1270. Crusade of Louis IX of France. 

1 29 1. End of crusading movement. 

V. Important Events in France and England, 

France. 

911. Founding of duchy of Normandy. 

987. End of CaroHngian rule in France. 

987, Capetian dynasty estabhshed. 

1 180 — 1223. PhiHp Augustus. 

1202. Enghsh fiefs declared forfeited. 

1226 — 1270. Louis IX. 

1258. Treaty with England. 

1285— 1314. Philip IV. 

1302. First Estates-general of France. 

1337 — 1453. The Hundred Years' War. 

1346. Battle of Crecy. 

1356. Battle of Poitiers. 

1360. Treaty of Bretigny, 



HISTORICAL OUTLINES. II7 

141 5. Battle of Agincourt. 

1429. Relief of Orleans by Joan of Arc. 

1453. Expulsion of English from Aquitaine. 

England. 



871 — 901. 


Alfred the Great. 


IOI6 — 1042. 


Rule of Danish kings. 


1066. 


Norman Conquest. 


1154- 


Accession of Henry II. first of the Plantagenet 




kings. 


II99 — I2I6. 


John. 


1215. 


Magna Charta. 


1265. 


Representatives of towns summoned to the great 




council. 


1272— 1307. 


Edward I. 


1295- 


The Model Parhament. 



Pr0n0unntt9 Htst 



A-chae'an An'to-ny 

A-crop'o-lis A-qui-taine' 

Ac'ti-um A-ra'bi-a 

A-dri-at'ic Ar-be'la 

iE'dile A-re-op'a-gus 

iE-ge'an A'-ri-ans 

^'gos-pot'a-mi Ar-is-tei'des 

iE-ne'id Ar-is-toph'a-nes 

^s'chy-lus A'si-a Minor 

iE-to'li-an A-si-at'ic 

Af'ri-ca As-si'si 

Afri-can As-syr'i-a 

Agincourt (a-zhan-koor') Ath-a-na'si-ans 

Al-ci-bi'a-des A'thos 

Al-ex-an'der At-lan'tic 

AFfred Au-gus'tine 

Am-phic-ty-on'ic Au-gus'tus 

An'gles Bab'y-lon 

Anjou (an-zhoo') Bab-y-lo'ni-a 

An-taFci-das Bar-ba-ros'sa 

An'ti-och Ben'e-dict 

An'to-nines Ben-e-dic'tine 



PRONOUNCING LIST. 



119 



Ber'n^rd 

Boe-o'ti-a 

Bon'i-face 

Bor-deaux' (do) 

Bouillion (Boo'yon') 

Brit'ain 

Brit'tan-y 

Bur-gun'di-ans 

Bur'gun-dy 

Bru'ges 

Cae'sar 

Ca-lais' (la) 

Ca-lig'u-la 

Ca-nos'sa 

Can-u-lei'an 

Ca-pe'tian 

Ca'ri-an 

Car-o-lin'gi-an 

Car'thage 

Car-tha-gin'i-an 

Cas-si'no 

Ca'to 

Ce' crops 

Chae-ro-nei'a 

Chal'ce-don 

Chal-cid'i-ce 

Chal-dae'a 



Char'le-magne (mane) 

Cic'e-ro 

Ci'mon 

Clau'di-us 

Cleis'the-nes 

Cle'on 

Cler'mont 

Clo'vis 

Clu'ny 

Cnos'sus 

Col-i-se'um 

Com'mo-dus 

Con'stan-tine 

Con-stan-ti-no'ple 

Cor-cy'ra 

Cor'inth 

Cor'si-ca 

Cras'sus 

Crete 

Crit'i-as 

Cre'cy (cra'se) 

Croe'sus 

Da'ci-a 

Dan'ube 

Dec'archy 

De'los 

DeFphic 



I20 



PRONOUNCING LIST. 



De-mos'the-nes 

Di-o-cle'ti-an 

Dom'i-nic 

E-des'sa 

Ed'ward 

E'gypt 

E-gyp'ti-an 

Einhard (in'hart) 

En'gland 

Ep-am-in-on'das 

Ep-i-cu-re'an-ism 

E-pi'rus 

E-thi-o'pi-a 

Eu'pa-trids 

Eu-phra'tes 

Eu-ro-pe'an 

E-ze'ki-el 

Fas'ti 

Flan'ders 

Fla'vi-ans 

Fo'rum 

France 

Fran'cis 

Fran-co'-ni-an 

Franks 

Gai'ser-ic 

Gas'co-ny 



Gauls 

Gen'o-a 

Ger'man 

Gi'zeh (gee) 

God'frey 

GotVic 

Grac'chus 

Gra-ni'cus 

Greek 

Greg'o-ry 

Gui-enne' (ge-en^) 

Han'ni-bal 

Han-se-at'ic 

He'brews 

HeFlas 

Herienes 

Hel-len'ic 

HeFles-pont 

He'lots 

Hen'ry 

Her'cu-les 

Her'mse 

He-rod'o-tus 

Hit'tites 

Ho-mer'ic 

Hor'ace 

Ho-ra'ti-us 



PRONOUNCING LIST. 121 

Hos'pi-tal-ers Lou'is 

Hyk'sos Lu'beck 

In'no-cent Lu'ci-an 

I-o'ni-a Lu-cre'ti-a 

I'rish Lyc'i-an 

Is'ra-el Ly-san'der 

Is'sus Mac-e-do'ni-a 

I-taFi-an Maine 

It'-a-ly Man-tin-ei'a 

Je-ru'sa-lem Mar'a-thon 

Jews Mar-do'ni-us 

Jo-an' of Arc Ma'ri-us 

Ju-gur'than Mar-teF 

Ju'li-us Med-i-ter-ra'ne-an 

Jus-tin'i-an Mem'phis 

Ju've-nal Me-nan'der 

Kar'nak Me'nes 

Lac-e-dae-mo'ni-an Mer-o-vin'gi-ans 

La-co'ni-a Mes-o-po-ta'mi-a 

La'ti-um Mi-lan' 

Le'o Mil-ti'a-des 

Le-on'i-das Mi'nos 

Lep'i-dus Mith-ri-da'tes 

Leuc'tra Mo-ham'med 

Liv'y Mo-ham'me-dan 

Loire (Iwar) My-ce'nae 

Lom'bards My-ce-nae'an 



122 PRONOUNCING LIST. 

Mun'da ■- Pe'ter 

Naz'a-reth Pe'trine 

Neb-u-chad-nez'zar Pha'raoh (ro) 

Ne'ro Phar-sa'lus 

Ni-cae'a Phi'di-as 

Ni'cene Phil'ip 

Nic'i-as Phi-lip'pi 

Nin'e-veh Phoe-ni'ci-an 

Nile Pip'pin 

Nor'man-dy Pi-sis'tra-tus 

Nor'mans Plan-tag'e-net 

Nov'go-rod Pla-tae'a 

Nu'rem-berg Ple-bei'an 

Oc-ta'vi-us Plin'y 

O-do-va'ker Plu'tarch 

Os'tro-goths Po 

Ot'to Poitiers (pwa-tya') 

Ov'id Poi-tou (pwa-too') 

PaFa-tine Pom'pey 

Par'is Pon'tus 

Pa-tri'ci-an Pro-vence'(-vanss) 

Pau-sa'ni-as Psa-met'i-chus 

Pe-lop'i-das Pu'nic 

Pel-o-pon-ne'sus Pyr'rhus 

Per'i-cles Qui-ri'nal 

Per-i-oe'ci Re'mus 

Per'si-an Rhine 



PRONOUNCING LIST. 



123 



Rhone 

Ro'man-esque' 

Rome 

Rom'u-lus 

Ro-set'ta 

Ru'bi-con 

Rus'si-a 

Sa'is 

Sal'a-din 

SaF-a-mis 

SaFic 

Sam'nites 

Sar-din'i-a 

Sax'on 

Seine 

Sem'ites 

Ser-to'ri-us 

Ser'vi-an 

Sex'tus 

Sicfi-ly 

Si'don 

Si'mon Ma'gus 

So'lon 

Soph'o-cles 

Spain 

Spar'ta 

Sto'i-cism 



SuFla . 

Syr-a-cuse' 

Syr'i-a 

Tac'i-tus 

Ta-ren'tum 

Tem'plars 

Teu-ton'ic 

Teu'tons 

Thap'sus 

The'ban 

Thebes 

The-mis'-to-cles 

The-oc'ri-tus 

The-ram'e-nes 

Ther-mop'y-lae 

The'seus 

Thoth'mes 

Thras-y-bu'lus 

Thu-cyd'i-des 

Timber 

Ti-be'ri-us 

Tig'lath-Pi-le'ser 

Ti'gris 

Tir'yns 

Ti'tus 

Tra'jan 

Tyre 



124 



PRONOUNCING LIST. 



Van'dals Wit'e-na-ge-mot' 

Ven-e'ti-an Worms 

Ven'ice Xen'o-phon 

Ver'gil Xerx'es 

Ver'res Za'ma 

Vis'i-goths Zeus 



S^aJitttg ffitfit* 



Frederic Harrison. The Meaning of History. A se- 
ries of interesting essays on historical subjects. ''The use 
of history" and "Some great books of history" are par- 
ticularly suggestive. 

Ploetz. Epitome of Ancient, Mediaeval, and Modern 
History. Invaluable for chronology and genealogical 
tables. 

Larned. History for Ready Reference. "A general his- 
tory on the dictionary plan," made up of selections from 
the best historians and biographers. Useful for increas- 
ing a knowledge of historical authorities as well as of the 
facts of history. 

Erman. Life in Ancient Egypt. 

Maspero. Life in Ancient Egypt and Assyria. 
The Dawn of Civilization. 
The Struggle of the Nations. 
The Passing of the Empires. 

*The reading list is arranged according to the division of the book into chapters . 
General works are named before those dealing with particular periods and special as- 
pects of civilization. Extended bibliographies giving sources, modern authorities, 
and illustrative works may be found in many of the books mentioned, and should be 
consulted to supplement the brief list above. 



126 READING LIST. 

Holm. History of Greece (4 volumes). Embodies results 

of latest investigations; scholarly and valuable. 
Grote. History of Greece (10 volumes). The best long 

history. A strong democratic bias. 
Botsford. History of Greece. A well-written one-volume 

text-book, showing intimate acquaintance with sources. 
TsouNTAS AND Manatt. The Mycenaean Age. An account 

of the recent discoveries of the Mycenaean period. 
Fov^LER. The City-State of the Greeks and Romans. 

A clear explanation of the political institutions. 
Butcher. Some Aspects of the Greek Genius. 

Harvard Essays on Greek Subjects. 

Delightful essays giving an insight into the life and 

thought of the Greeks. 
Abbott's Pericles and the Golden Age of Athens and 

B. I. Wheeler's Alexander the Great in the Heroes 

OF THE Nations series are excellent accounts of the periods 

dominated by these two great men. 
Translations of Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon give 
the original sources in accessible form. 
Mommsen. History of Rome. The most scholarly long 

history. 

Pelham. Outlines of Roman History. A one-volume 
history of great value. 

Beesly. The Gracchi, Marius and Sulla. 



reading list. 1 27 

Ihne. Early Rome. 

Merivale. Roman Triumvirates. 

Capes. The Early Empire. 

The Age of the Antonines. 
The five last named works are short volumes in the 
Epoch series. 

Abbott. Roman Political Institutions. A clear account 
of the development of Roman government and a descrip- 
tion of its many factors. 

Plutarch's Lives furnish interesting biographical informa- 
tion about the great statesmen and generals of Greece 
and Rome. 

Of modern biographies, Strachan-Davidson's Cicero, 
Froude's Caesar, and Fovv^ler's Caesar should certain- 
ly be consulted. 

Gibbon. Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Of 
greatest value for the later Empire. Index may be con- 
sulted for special references. 

HoDGKiN. Italy and Her Invaders. An exhaustive ac- 
count of the invasions of Visigoths, Vandals, etc. 

Emerton. Introduction to the Middle Ages. A brief 
but scholarly presentation of the events from Constantine 
to Charlemagne, with an account of the early Germanic 
kingdoms. 

Emerton. Mediaeval Europe, 814 — 1300. 



128 reading list. 

Bryce. The Holy Roman Empire. 

Fisher. History of the Christian Church. A one- 
volume history of great value. 
Alzog. Manual oe Church History. Gives the Catholic 

point of view. 
Thatcher and Schwill. Europe in the Middle Age. 

A useful text-book. 
G. B. Adams. The Growth of the French Nation. 
Civilization During the Middle Ages. 
Essays showing the foundations of our 
civilization and its development into 
its modern form. The writer assumes 
that the facts of history are known. 
Green. History of the English People. 
Stubbs. Constitutional History of England. 
KiTCHiN. History of France. 

Henderson. History of Germany in the Middle Ages. 
Jessop. The Coming of the Friars. Interesting essays on 

monasticism and other phases of mediaeval life. 
Cunningham. Western Civilization in its Economic 
Aspects. Essays on the economic features of the growth 
and diffusion of civiHzed life in Western Europe. 
Church. The Beginning of the Middle Ages. 
Cox. The Crusades. 



g>«0g^att0n0 fat (HlvbB. 



Outline for a Paper on Alexander of Macedon and 
HIS Claim to the Title of ''Great." 
I. Early life of Alexander. 

A. Inherited tendencies. 

B. Educational influences. 

(i) Greek literature and philosophy. 

C. Dominant characteristics. 
II. Alexander as a military genius. 

A. Conquest of the Persian kingdom, 
(i) Battles of Granicus, Issus, Arbela. 
(2) Siege of Tyre. 

B. Victorious marches into northern and eastern 

countries, 
(i) Return from India through Gedrosian desert. 
(2) Rediscovery of sea route from the Indus to 

Persian Gulf. 
III. Alexander as a statesman. 

A. Formation of empire of vast extent. 

B. Administration of provincial government. 

C. Foundation of cities as centres of civilization 

and trade, 
(i) Alexandria. 
9 



130 SUGGESTIONS FOR CLUBS. 

IV. Permanent value of Alexander's conquests. 

A. Extension of Hellenic civilizations in the East. 

B. Disappearance of distinction between Greek 

and Barbarians. 

C. Use of Greek as a universal language, 
(i) Preparation for spread of Christianity. 

D. Impulse given to trade and commerce. 

V. Modern analogies to the life and conquests of Alexander. 

A. Military and political genius of Napoleon. 

B. Rapid advance of European nations into the East. 

VI. Critical estimates of Alexander by modern historians. 
(Grote, Holm, Droysen, Mahaffy, etc.) 

VII. Conclusion. — Writer's own opinion of Alexander's 
greatness. 



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